Drowning Beside You
by coveryoureyes
Summary: Vivienne Sommers died alongside Miranda and Grayson Gilbert. Unlike them, she came back - even if it was after 1000 years in the underworld. "I swore to a friend that I would protect you and your family," pausing a moment, she continued, "even if you are considered abominations. After all, we are all monsters in one way or another." Originals/OC friendship, eventual Klaus/OC
1. Chapter 1

The first thing Vivienne felt was the cold. She was submerged in water and everything around her seemed to be spinning when she cracked open her eyes, blurring in the dark and turning the interior of the car into nothing but vague shapes. She felt something moving her back and forth when a sharp, throbbing pain then made itself known on her right temple. When she dazedly ran her fingers over the source of the pain it intensified tenfold. As her vision sharpened, she was able to focus her muddled thoughts.

She'd just come home to her aunt and uncle's house after finishing her college exams and had joined her uncle and aunt in picking up her cousin so that she could surprise Elena with her homecoming. They had hugged tightly and began catching up, Elena had been laughing at her for her habit of crossing her fingers whenever driving over a bridge. She thought she'd heard a screeching, then a loud crashing noise, but everything she struggled to recall after that was fuzzy.

She turned to her left and saw that Elena was the force that had been moving her, gripping her sweater sleeve and shaking her with eyes wide and an expression of utter panic on her face. Vivienne laced her fingers through her cousin's hand and turned her eyes to the front seats of the car, letting out a small cry and releasing some of her precious air, sending bubbles to the car's roof. Her Aunt Miranda was motionless, floating against her seatbelt with her eyes closed and her mouth parted.

When she met eyes with her Uncle Grayson, the man who had given her everything, she couldn't hold back her pained whimper. He gaze was resigned, loving, and Vivienne could clearly see that he was masking any fear or panic he was feeling when he slowly shook his head back and forth, confirming that they were trapped. Grayson reached back to the two girls in the back seat, holding their free hands with his own before looking at both girls and mouthing, "I love you." Elena and then Vivienne did the same, and each tightened their grips.

Black spots began to cloud her vision, and for a moment Vivienne thought she was hallucinating when the man knocked against the car window. Grayson seemed to point to the back seat, motioning for the young man to reach for the girls first. The side door opened, and Vivienne unbuckled Elena's seatbelt before shoving her now-unconscious cousin as best she could toward the stranger's arms. Her gaze flickered to Elena's savior, and their eyes met. He looked anguished, sad, and Vivienne knew immediately that there wouldn't be time for him to return.

Offering him a gentle smile, she nodded, encouraging him to hurry to the surface. As the shapes of Elena and the young man disappeared into the river's dark water, she inhaled gulps of water and coughed as she felt her consciousness slipping away. The last thing she saw before closing her eyes was the image of a large ring being slid onto her finger by her uncle.

* * *

Stefan had dove into the water the moment he reached the river after he'd seen the car careen off of the bridge. When he'd reached the submerged vehicle, the man driving had indicated that he save the figures in the back first.

When he'd turned to the back seat, it felt as though the world had stopped spinning. The girl closer to him looked like Katherine. Exactly. Like. Katherine. If not for the faint heartbeat, he would have sworn it was her.

Snapping himself out of his reverie, he tore the back door off of its hinges. The girl beside the Katherine look alike was unbuckling her companion, and shoved the unconscious girl into his arms, seemingly unconcerned with her own seat belt or chance at rescue. Adjusting his hold on the girl in his arms, he turned back and locked eyes with the remaining girl.

There wouldn't be time to dive back down and pull her from the sunken car after resuscitating the brunette who wore the face of his past love. Instead of fear, hate, or even bitterness, the girl curved her lips into a sad smile and nodded at him, acknowledging her fate. Feeling the guilt and helplessness stab at him as painfully as any stake, he pushed off of the car and swam to the surface with the brunette secured in his arms. After dragging himself and the girl to the riverbed, he performed CPR on her for what seemed like eternity but in truth was minutes at most. When he heard a faint choked cough from her chest, Stefan sat back and watched in relief as the girl turned her head and vomited up water. She slipped into unconsciousness, but he could hear her steadied breathing and heartbeat and knew she would recover.

Without hesitation Stefan entered the river once again and pushed himself to swim faster when he caught sight of the sedan on the bottom of the riverbed. As quickly as he could, he swam to the opposite side of the car and tore off the other door before raising his eyes to look at the only figure that remained in the back seat. Blonde hair darkened by the water floated around her and her eyes were closed. Her lips were parted slightly and she looked peaceful, as if she was sleeping.

She didn't have a heartbeat.

With regret stabbing at him but knowing he had to avoid detection at all costs, Stefan swam away from the wreck. With a final glance back at the three figures still strapped in the car, he swam down the river and pulled himself out of the water nearly half a mile from the bridge. With his enhanced senses he could easily make out the sirens of the ambulances and police cars that had just arrived at the scene. Looking out to the surface of the water, he whispered a quiet apology to the girl he couldn't save before he took off running.

* * *

Vivienne's eyes shot open and she lurched forward against the restraint of her seat belt, gasping deeply and immediately flooding her lungs with water. Frantic, she looked around her and saw the bodies of her aunt and uncle in the front seats of the car. Involuntarily coughing against the fluid that she'd hastily breathed in, Vivienne soon felt a weight to her limbs and saw the familiar black before slipping away into the darkness.

* * *

She'd read somewhere that there were five stages of drowning: surprise, involuntary breath holding, unconsciousness, hypoxic convulsions, and death. Vivienne didn't know what was the worst part. The first few times she'd thought perhaps the initial moment of waking up submerged in the water, but now she thought it was maybe the second that she faded into the dark, feeling everything that made her herself disappear.

* * *

Was this hell? Vivienne had done some bad things in her life, things that would be classified as 'sins' by Christians. Maybe it didn't take something as extreme as rape or murder to suffer eternal damnation.

All she knew was that waking inside of her aunt and uncle's submerged metal grave only to die and wake yet again what felt like a moment later was the most brilliantly constructed torment any god could compose.

* * *

Following Vivienne Sommers' sixty eighth death, a pair of hands reached for her, gently releasing her from her seat. When she was fully extracted from her prison, the two figures vanished from the world.


	2. Chapter 2

Elijah looked to the younger Salvatore brother, and though he kept his face impassive, unease stirred within him. He'd given his word to the newest doppelganger that he would aid her and her friends in their quest to kill his brother. However, the moment Niklaus had said that his siblings weren't lost, he knew that he could not follow through with it. Elijah knew that he could not trust his younger brother, but if there was the smallest of chances that he could reunite with his family, he would do anything.

"You understand how important family is, or you wouldn't be here. My brother gave me his word that he would reunite me with my own."

"And so I shall."

Immediately after his brother spoke, he heard a crash and turned around to face the noise. The scene before him was entirely bizarre.

Niklaus was pinned to the wall, a short figure holding his wrists tightly against the wood. Elijah could only see the back of the person, and was confused by what he saw. Clearly female, she wore a black flowing dress that reached the floor, tattered and muddy. Her hair was dark, a matted mane of waves and curls that reached just past her hips. Before Elijah could say anything, or even formulate a sentence, the woman reached for Niklaus' right hand, and Elijah noticed the dagger for the first time clutched tightly in his brother's grasp. Plucking the weapon seemingly easily from his grasp, she carelessly tossed it to her side and shook her head as if chiding the hybrid.

"Niklaus, pu reior seggr, paer munu pu geta tyna?" the woman before them asked in a flat tone.

The immense anger Elijah had seen on his brother's face gave way to absolute shock. The woman holding against the wall was speaking in flawless Old Norse, their native tongue. He hadn't heard someone speak the language in centuries. However, after the shock left Niklaus' face, only fury remained. He threw the girl off of him, propelling her to the opposite end of the room, where her head loudly collided with the wall. Instead of crumpling to the floor, she quickly stood, smoothed down her dress, and let out a deep sigh. It seemed… exasperated.

Elijah didn't know if he should intervene, so he decided to allow his brother to finish off the creature and simply observe. He noted that the younger Salvatore and Katerina seemed to have reached the same conclusion, both backed against the wall farthest from the fight and watching with wide eyes. Just as the girl seemed to regain her composure, Niklaus had her in the air, gripping her throat tightly while his eyes had turned yellow. Instead of flailing about, or struggling at all in his hold, the girl narrowed her eyes and seemed to size him up, trailing her eyes from his feet to the hand wrapped around her neck. Unfazed, she reached toward him and encircled his wrist with her hand.

The sound of his brother's wrist bones being crushed was audible to even human ears. Roaring in pain, his brother dropped the girl, who landed lightly on her feet, which Elijah now noted were bare.

She spoke in a somber voice, and he noted the authority that seemed to resound in her words when she said, "Sva vel letta, ek gera at vilja vega."

Ignoring the girl's words, Niklaus charged at her, extending his arm in an attempt to tear out her heart. The move was easily avoided, and he then shot out his foot toward her knee to incapacitate her. However, rather than merely sidestepping the move, the girl disappeared. Niklaus' eyes widened in an emotion Elijah hadn't seen often; fear. A moment later, she appeared directly behind him, and before his eyes could find her she pressed her hands his temples.

The effect was instantaneous. Niklaus fell to his knees and his mouth fell open. Elijah began to rush forward, guessing that she was working some sort of spell, and not desiring to see his brother dead at her hands when he had much to answer to yet. But when he was five feet from them, he was repelled and could not get any closer. Her spell was unlike anything he had ever encountered. The girl's eyes were closed lightly, and black veins seemed to spread across her skin from the places her hands touched his brother's skin. A grey mist left Niklaus' mouth and she parted her own lips, seeming to breath it in. Her eyes shot open, and to his horror, her eyes were entirely black, giving her a truly demonic look.

Just as quickly as she had seized him, she released her hold and Niklaus's head fell forward, his chest heaving noticeably. She stepped back and walked around him until she was directly in front of him. She lightly grabbed his face and tipped it up. He seemed to still be in a trance and his face deceptively calm, though Elijah could only guess the rage his brother was feeling.

Staring into Niklaus' eyes, she whispered "Stundar akafr, stundar dreyrugr, pu vili fagna ek heita." With a quick twist of her hands, she'd snapped his neck.

The girl stepped back from the body now lying on the floor and turned to him. The dark veins spanning across her arms, chest, and face faded and the black film covering her eyes receded until only her pupils and irises were stained. Knowing that the thing before him could overpower him easily, he decided to simply stay where he was and hear what she wanted from them.

Instead of the list of demands and threats he expected, she nodded at him and said in a polite tone, "Gaman finna pu skapgoor, Elijah. Ek heyra mjok ykkr drengskapr."

She then turned to Katerina and Stefan, who had remained immobile since the chaos had erupted. She walked up to them slowly, almost casually. Her stride was not graceful or light on her feet, it was ambling and uneven, unnervingly human. When she turned to Katerina, she spoke quickly but confidently.

"Go, Katerina. Your time approaches."

The vampire doppelganger gaped at the girl in front of them before slowly walking to the door of the apartment, not taking her eyes off of the unknown creature. When she reached the threshold, she hesitantly reached her hand out, and when she discovered that somehow Niklaus' compulsion had worn off when it passed through uninhibited, she disappeared in a flash.

The girl then walked into the kitchen, reaching into a cabinet and pulling out a glass. She walked over to Niklaus' body, and when she pulled out a small knife from a hidden pocket of her dress Elijah attempted once again to approach her, but the repelling force remained. He knew that his brother's blood was powerful for many spells, and he feared that the woman would be extremely dangerous with it in her possession. Unable to do anything, he watched as she dragged her blade across his palm, dripping the blood into the glass.

When the glass was half full she placed his brother's hand back onto the floor, and approached the younger Salvatore. She extended her hand and he took the glass hesitantly, an unsure expression on his face as if trying to discern what she was about to do. A moment later, however, Elijah watched as the vampire's face transformed entirely into a look of shock and confusion.

"Vivienne?"

The single word was said with an incredulous tone, and Elijah wondered if the young vampire somehow knew this being. He studied her face closely, looking for any reaction to the name, and found none.

"Yes, I was," she responded easily, her voice impassive, apparently unaffected by his recognition.

He saw a look of doubtful hope cross the young man's face as he said, "But you had no heartbeat, you were dead."

In the same tone she responded, "Yes, I was."

Before he asked the girl any more questions, she cut him off quickly.

"Go now, use this to save your brother. Damon Salvatore is not meant to die today."

He watched the vampire begin to speed off, stopping at the door way and casting one last look over his shoulder. When he vanished, silence fell on them. She stood still for a minute and Elijah did the same, wary to do anything that would invoke her anger. She finally moved, striding toward Niklaus' body, but before he let fear for his brother's life seize him, she passed it and bent down, grasping instead the discarded silver dagger that Elijah had forgotten about in the last few minutes.

Not wanting to dwell yet on his younger brother's intended betrayal, he stared, allowing himself to closely inspect the woman now trailing her fingers lightly over the blade back and forth. After a minute more of inspecting the weapon, she snapped her head to him, meeting his eyes.

"Pu fyst English eda Norroen?"

Elijah kept his face blank and maintained a steady voice as he politely responded, "English, please."

The woman nodded and let out a hum of acknowledgement, before reversing her direction yet again to wander to the kitchen of the apartment. She trailed her fingers over nearly everything, lingering on the appliances. Just as she appeared to move on, she stopped short and turned slowly to the sink. She slowly reached for the faucet and turned it on. She seemed enraptured by the stream of water, narrowing her eyes as if it required constant monitoring.

Elijah could no longer take the frustration of not knowing why the creature was here, and the feeling of being in danger was not one he was accustomed to.

"Pardon me, but may I enquire as to what will proceed?"

She turned off the faucet and tucked the silver dagger into her pocket, an action noted by Elijah, who resolved to more carefully track where the weapon was at all times. She did not seem angry at his question, nor did she seem excited, as he had seen many feel when they were given a chance to explain an elaborate plan.

She remained equally polite when she answered, "Let us wait for talk of motives until Niklaus has awakened, he will be unhappy."

* * *

TRANSLATIONS OF OLD NORSE TO ENGLISH:

 _Pu reior seggr, paer munu pu geta tyna_ : You angry boy, when will you be able to forgive?

 _Sva vel letta, ek gera at vilja vega_ : Please stop, I do not wish to fight

 _Stundar akafr, stundar dreyrugr, pu vili fagna ek heita_ : So vehement, so anguished, you will be happy, I promise

 _Gaman finna pu skapgoor. Ek heyra mjok ykkr drengskapr_ : Pleasure to meet you. I have heard much of your nobility.


	3. Chapter 3

Elijah's apprehension steadily grew, and he decided that questioning her further would most likely not yield much more information. He was scouring his brain, attempting to guess what species of creature she was. She had worked a sort of magic he had never seen, and was more powerful than anything he had ever encountered or even heard rumor of.

After mentioning his brother, she looked to his prone form on the carpet and approached him. Seeing her pick up his brother as if he weighed no more than an infant was not a surprise, but what she then proceeded to do left him speechless yet again at her unpredictability.

She put his brother down on one of the chairs in the room. Instead of depositing him carelessly, she paused and then proceeded to arrange him into a more comfortable position, adjusting him a few times. It was absurd, surreal. Elijah was watching as his all-powerful werewolf-vampire hybrid brother was manhandled as if he were a doll. When the woman attempted to correctly position his head in an upright position, it quickly flopped to the side. She tried again, and her actions yielded the same result. After two more attempts, she took a step back and cocked her head to the side before apparently giving up. She took a seat on the plush couch that faced the two chairs in the room, slowly lowering herself and then running her hands across the fabric, stroking it softly.

Mirroring her actions, Elijah carefully lowered himself onto the chair adjacent to the one his temporarily dead brother was occupying, allowing him an easy view to continue to study her. Her eyes followed his action, but she seemed uninterested, glancing around the apartment. When she turned her gaze to Niklaus, her blank expression left her face for the first time since she had appeared in the apartment.

A wry smile crossed her face and she leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. When she turned to him and began to speak, still wearing the look of amusement, Elijah tried to remain impassive. Seeing the expression on her face was disconcerting, especially when matched with her entirely black irises.

"He is certainly quite a handful, is he not?"

Instantly confused by the turn of events, he couldn't stop himself before asking, "What is it that you want?"

She did not seem offended or enraged by his question, something he was immediately thankful for. Her eyes left his and she seemed to stare off, leaning back against the couch and crossing her arms as she seemed to relive a memory. When she focused on him yet again, he saw that she had once again adopted her expressionless mask, giving nothing away.

"I swore to a friend that I would protect you and your family," pausing a moment as if carefully considering her next words, she continued, "even if you are considered abominations. After all, we are all monsters in one way or another."

Elijah was on edge. This thing in front of him was perhaps the most dangerous being he had ever encountered. Her near-flawless composure meant that he could not read her and he had no way to ensure that she was being truthful as he guessed that attempting compulsion would be futile, so he was unwilling to let his guard down even an inch for her. He continued to ponder her words, trying to imagine all the circumstances that would lead to her situation, or a situation in which she would tell this lie when he knew that she was capable of easily daggering him, perhaps even killing him.

The silence between them stretched for a few minutes and it had an acutely uncomfortable feeling. If he was observing the situation from an outsider's perspective, he may have found it amusing that three of the most powerful beings on the world were in a room together, and two of them couldn't even maintain conversation. He allowed his thoughts to wander but after a few minutes more she suddenly interrupted his internal reverie.

"Do you believe Niklaus would also prefer if we converse in English?"

Relieved that she was once again speaking, he answered her cordially and said, "Yes, he will prefer if we speak English. In addition, he prefers to be called Klaus."

She nodded and mouthed 'Klaus' to herself. She began to stare at his brother once more, searching his unconscious face for something she seemed to not find before she turned her attention to him once again. Her eyes bore into him and she trailed her eyes all over his face, not keeping eye contact, studying him as if committing his features to memory. She seemed satisfied after a moment and relaxed further into the couch.

She drummed her fingers against her thigh and for a moment looked so utterly _human_ in her apparent restlessness that Elijah's curiosity as to her species was increased immensely. He was almost startled when she spoke to him while her unfocused eyes gazed over his shoulder in deep thought.

"I was named Vivienne. You may call me that."


	4. Chapter 4

Vivienne was incredibly uncomfortable. The vampire in front of her was very strange. She'd been told that they were volatile, impulsive creatures, but the person in front of her – well, the conscious person – seemed very level-headed. Rational even, unlike the hybrid. Though she longed to interrogate the one called Elijah, discover why he was such an apparent anomaly, she held back. She hated not knowing things, but if she wanted to gain his trust she knew she couldn't bombard him with questions right away.

To make matters worse, Niklaus was going to wake in approximately one minute and a half. From what she'd been told, she thought that he would probably be the hardest to be granted trust from. Her first impression had not gone as she had imagined it would, but she had arrived to find him about to incapacitate Elijah, something she couldn't allow.

She hadn't had to worry about meeting people and impressing them in a very long time. It was strange to think that she would be influenced by their opinions. Very strange indeed. She didn't think that she had messed up too badly with Elijah yet. Her first words to him had been polite. She hadn't killed him. Already she had a better relationship with him than the hybrid.

Glancing at Niklaus once again she almost slipped and allowed her feelings to flash across her face. She couldn't help it. She'd heard so much about all of them, and Klaus' temper rivaled her own, amusing her greatly. Reflecting on his temperament, she focused back on the fact that he would soon wake, then it would be time for her to be, well, agreeable. As nervousness once again assaulted her she began to crack her knuckles, one of the only habits she hadn't lost from her time as a human. The loud popping sounds almost echoed in the room, and when she began to crack the second knuckles of her fingers she noticed Elijah flinch an infinitesimal amount.

God damnit. She took a moment to inhale deeply, and felt incredibly proud when she didn't begin to snort. Elijah, though apparently very moral and noble, had still assuredly killed thousands, and was off put by her cracking her knuckles. The irony was not lost on her. However, Vivienne felt her light mood disappear the instant that Klaus began to move, signaling that he was about to wake.

Vivienne was out of practice, but she figured that she should be kind in order to avoid any more confrontation. But if she was too nice he may suspect that she meant to harm him. She decided to begin with showing him the same politeness that she had given his brother.

That was why the moment he opened his eyes and focused on her she said, "I apologize for breaking your spine and severing your spinal cord, it was unfortunately necessary for the situation," complete with an apologetic nod.

His eyes narrowed and for a moment she was worried, but it was soon replaced with a wide smile, showing off dimples and making him appear much more friendly. Vivienne felt immensely relieved and began to try to smile back when he spoke in a slow, pleasant tone.

"Then you understand, no hard feelings, love."

He launched himself at her so quickly, and she had stupidly allowed herself to relax slightly, so he was able to make contact before she could rematerialize elsewhere. He smashed into her with enough force to knock the couch over backwards and then propel it quite a few feet. Clearly Niklaus had not forgiven her for their earlier disagreement. There was an enormous amount of aggression within him, she'd tasted that when she'd taken a sample from him, so she decided to humor him and remain in place.

She laid flat on her back on the floor and he straddled her hips, pinning her to the ground. With one hand he had her wrists pressed to the floor stretched above her head, and the other was in the air, poised to tear out her heart. Annoyed, but resigned to allow him this little victory, she merely laid there.

When his hand collided with her chest exactly above the place in the chest cavity which would be easiest to rip a heart from, she swore she almost felt it. Her bad mood vanished when she saw the look of bafflement on his face. It was like a child getting their favorite toy snatched away from them and not understanding what they've done wrong. He lifted his arm and attempted it again, and yet again his hand did not puncture her flesh. To make matters even more humorous, his hand was now pressed flat against her breast. He seemed to realize that a moment later when she cleared her throat and raised an eyebrow.

She rematerialized beside Elijah, making the original's eyes widen in surprise for a moment before he composed himself once again. Minutes ago she would have been pleased to ruffle up such a stiff individual, but Klaus' attempt on her life had starkly reminded her of what her superiors had told her.

It was better to remain detached. She may want their trust, but she couldn't ever give them hers. She was there as a protector, not as a friend. They could hate her and she would still fulfill her promise.

After all, it was the least she could do for Henrik seeing as they had been side by side for 300 years.


	5. Chapter 5

After Vivienne had subdued him and effectively evaded all of his attacks, Klaus had risen from the floor and looked at her warily, perhaps finally realizing that she had the power to thwart him. She hoped so. Kicking his ass repeatedly would not be a very good thing for a protector to do.

Motioning to the chair he had previously been sitting on, she was proud to keep her voice courteous as she said, "Please sit, Klaus. We have much to do and breaking your neck again will only hinder us."

The hybrid took his seat, his face remaining calm, but Vivienne could almost still taste the immense fear of mortality that gripped him. To be faced with something like her must be intimidating for him, so she decided to attempt the 'friendly' thing again.

Klaus let his eyes languidly look her over, and she resisted the urge to squirm. They had things to do, places to be, and she was getting very impatient with the two men and their inability to do what she said. She hadn't been a subordinate in nearly two centuries, and their lack of respect was an unfamiliar situation.

"What do you think we'll be doing?"

Before she could bite back a reply, Elijah interjected, glancing at his brother and stating, "Vivienne claims that she is here to protect us."

The hybrid let out a laugh, and pointed to his neck before mocking her, "Really? And this is your idea of protection, Vivienne?"

Vivienne felt flustered but refused to let herself show it. This was not at all like she thought it would be. She was supposed to protect them and they would get along and she would be doing it all right. Instead, it seemed like all she had done so far was generate dislike and mistrust from the both of them.

"No. As I said, it was necessary. You were being irrational. We have wasted enough time, now it is time for us to bring you all back together."

Both Elijah and Klaus looked at her, confused but wary, before looking at one another. Klaus gave a small nod and Elijah responded with a frown. She'd been away from the living for a very long time, so she wasn't entirely sure she could tell what their body language meant, but when they both looked back to her they seemed more calm than before.

It was Elijah who spoke, perhaps knowing that she was more inclined to answer him as opposed to his jackass brother. "What do you mean by 'bringing us all back together'?"

She rolled her eyes and let out a derisive snort. She couldn't help but let her emotions show, these two were just so idiotic. She'd already told Elijah that she was here to protect his family. Who else could she mean? He was one thousand years old, wasn't he supposed to be intelligent?

"We're going to awaken Finn, Rebekah, and Kol."

* * *

This was the closest Vivienne had felt to being tired in decades. After she had informed Klaus and Elijah of her plan, things had quickly become chaotic. Klaus, snarling, had tried to attack her, and Elijah had tackled him. However, it seemed that he wasn't truly anticipating how much stronger Klaus would be with his recent ascension to hybrid status. Elijah was quickly kicked off, and before she could anticipate what he planned to do next, Klaus had staked Elijah with a leg of the coffee table.

She was currently sitting on top of Klaus, where she had been for the past two hours with his arms pinned by his side and her thighs tightly keeping him in place. After thirty minutes of bucking wildly and trying to bite at her he had seemed to surrender, only to spontaneously try to throw her off once again to presumably try to kill her.

She didn't have to put in very much effort against the hybrid because he was weakened from her earlier sampling of him, but having to remain in one place for so long was making her twitchy. She was constantly moving; traveling had been an enormous part of her job before coming back top-side. When she had begun to fidget after an hour Klaus had made some very inappropriate comments that had almost made her rip his head off.

If only she could. Maybe someday.

After that she had remained entirely still and she was ready to impale herself on the stake with Elijah to attempt to escape her boredom for a moment when he finally began to move again. She watched, fascinated by the process as the color returned to his skin and he pulled out the weapon that had killed him. Sort of. He cracked his neck and stood up, stretching as he went. Vivienne, feeling immense relief at the prospect of finally getting up, let her head hang down and sighed, "Thank the gods," causing Elijah to twist his head in their direction, finally catching sight of them.

His eyes trailed over the two and he merely raised an eyebrow, while Klaus began to laugh from under her.

"Come on love, don't pretend you weren't enjoying yourself."

Not bothering to respond, Vivienne stood and walked about, getting used to her legs again. Already anticipating Klaus' attack when he thought she would be distracted, she merely rematerialized beside Elijah and ran a hand roughly through her hair, only making it a few inches before it became stuck in her tangles. Taking a deep breath and deciding to attempt civility, she looked at Klaus and said, "Please tell us where the coffins containing your siblings are."

His response included some uses of curse words that Vivienne added to her repertoire for future use, but she was tired of his trickery so she pressed him against the wall as she had when she had first found them, only this time she wasn't planning on holding back.

Turning to Elijah, she muttered, "Is there any chance he'll be more partial to telling you where to find them?"

Elijah's lips twitched as he quietly said, "Absolutely not," and she realized he was holding back a smile, probably amused by her continuous failure to succeed as their protector. Annoyed now, she turned back to the hybrid and met his gaze, trying to convey her sincerity.

"Klaus, I know how to find the truth. It will be unpleasant for the both of us, and I would rather not resort to that. I will ask one more time. Where are you keeping your siblings?"

"Torture me all you want, I won't tell you."

Vivienne cringed and shook her head, already filled with guilt and regret. Just before she leaned in she whispered, "I am deeply sorry, Niklaus."

She leaned in, a gesture that looked as though it would lead up to a kiss. That is, until she pulled her head back from his. In the space between their mouths, a strand of what looked like light was leaving his mouth and entering hers. After a minute she released her hold on him and he slumped to the floor, unconscious once more. She fell to her knees beside him, but after a few seconds pushed herself back to her feet, trembling slightly but determined.

She turned around to face Elijah, knowing that her true visage of darkness was showing in her eyes and veins. At least he couldn't see her talons – she was holding her hands in fists. He looked taken aback, not necessarily frightened, but definitely shocked. There was concern there as well, so Vivienne quickly said, "He will be fine in a few minutes. I'll have to hurry, I know where they are."

Elijah nodded and looked again to his brother laying propped up against the wall.

"What can I do to assist you?"

Vivienne turned and joined him in watching Klaus. He would not be happy with her. _She_ wasn't happy with herself. Seeking information from someone's mind against their wishes was a bastardization of the mind blending process, and she felt as though she'd betrayed her oath to protect him. However, she had to continue, for the greater good. Turning back to Elijah, she said, "Keep an eye on him, just try your best to keep him here, subdue him as best you can."

She took the silver dagger from her dress pocket and handed it to him pommel first while he stared at her in surprise. "Protect yourself as best you can as well. I'll be back soon."


	6. Chapter 6

After Vivienne spoke to Elijah, she pictured the location that Klaus' mind had revealed to her and materialized there in seconds. Walking around the room, she approached the closest coffin and gripped it tightly, bracing herself before materializing back. Elijah turned to her, shocked, and she stumbled a bit before righting herself.

"I apologize for my apparent weakness, bringing things with me as I travel is taxing, and I am very far from my source of power."

Before he could respond, she left once again, grabbing the next one. She only stayed in the apartment for a moment, knees buckling, and left right away after seeing Klaus beginning to wake. She landed next to the final coffin she intended to move still kneeling, but summoned the energy to take the final one back.

There was a fourth coffin, but she had been warned before coming here that it was spelled, and contained something that should not yet be released into the world, so she avoided it completely.

Finally back at the apartment, she slumped against the wall and breathed deeply. Although technically unnecessary, breathing was still something she found comforting. Probably because of all of her deaths. After drowning over and over she had come to realize how soothing the act of breathing could be.

If she had been at full power she would have realized right away that Klaus was rushing in her direction, having just evaded Elijah's attempt to force him down. As it was, she was distracted, and soon found herself pinned to the floor with his hands gripping her skull, tangling in her hair as he was apparently attempting to pull her head off of her neck.

Vivienne did not consider herself an unreasonable person. But in that moment, all of her sadness that stemmed from leaving her home and coming back to this plane of the Earth, her insecurity that she was failing as a protector, and her absolute rage at this arrogant little hybrid boiled over, and she exploded.

Materializing right behind him she picked him up, and used all of her strength to throw him through the wall. She stalked through the hole, mindlessly avoiding the rubble and exposed wires, gripping him tightly and bringing him back to the main room. When she dropped him unceremoniously on the floor he let out a groan, but not one of unimaginable pain. No, he was disappointed that his attempt on her life had yet again failed.

Unfortunately for him, she was not in the mood to bestow pity.

Talons fully extending and black veins spreading across her skin, she pinned him to the ground and hissed furiously, glaring at him with entirely black eyes.

"Listen, you insolent megalomaniac, I have not been top-side for what has been approximately one thousand years in my realm, so my people skills may be a bit rusty. However, I believe it is still rude to continuously try to kill someone whose endeavor is to ultimately help you. Stand. Down."

After snapping his neck yet again, Vivienne stood up, retracted her talons and allowed the power to seep from her veins, the black fading quickly before focusing to make her eyes also appear more normal. Shaking her head side to side in an attempt to clear her thoughts, she turned and was met with the sight of Elijah completely frozen, hands wrapped around a stake protruding from his stomach that she assumed he had been in the process of removing.

Now embarrassed by her temper tantrum, she cleared her throat lightly.

"So, would you like to wake everyone up now?"

* * *

Elijah was a very self aware person. But even as he knew without a doubt that he was being incredibly rude, and maybe offensive, he could not stop staring at the woman flitting about, peeking into the coffins every few seconds as they waited for Finn, Bekah, and Kol to wake.

Vivienne.

Every time he started to believe that he could figure her out, she would do something completely unpredictable, and he was left once again clueless. She claimed to be their protector, a statement that he had immediately disregarded as absurd, a lie to create a false sense of security. But then she had located his lost siblings and brought them to him, and based on the fact that she had seemed as though she would collapse, he imagined it had been at her own expense.

Most of the time she remained composed, almost reminding him of how someone would behave with a work associate, but at times she would crack, whether it be a smile or, as he had just discovered, a murderous rage that would end with a Klaus-shaped hole in a wall.

Clearly she was dangerous. Much more so than he had thought, perhaps inconceivably. Furthermore, she had yet to kill his brother when Niklaus' behavior nearly begged for it. Perhaps there was more truth to her claim than he had originally thought.

"Elijah, do you know approximately how long it will take for them to rise from their neutralized states?"

She turned to look at him, and when he caught her eyes he was left speechless. They were haunting - very clearly supernatural – and were the only part of her that betrayed her true age, if her words were to be believed. One thousand years in a realm apparently not their own. And she kept mentioning the 'top-side', a concept that he was unfamiliar with. Shaking himself from his reverie, he replied, "Very soon, I believe."

She nodded and cast a glance at the back corner of the room, where Niklaus lay slumped over. Elijah had compelled a truck driver to give himself, Vivienne, and their luggage a ride to the nicest foreclosure in town, and they were now all in the parlor room of a the house they had arrived at. Niklaus had awoken as he and Vivienne were unloading the coffins, forcing her to break his neck yet again. This last time however, as the crack had rung out, Vivienne had flinched away from his body when she dropped it. Elijah suspected that she was regretting her outburst at the apartment and had felt guilty breaking his neck.

Before he could dwell any longer on his thoughts concerning Vivienne, he heard a desperate gasp of air, and Rebekah shot up from her prone position, gripping the edges of her coffin and heaving. Elijah rushed to her and immediately handed her a blood bag, then a few more as she greedily gulped at the liquid.

"Elijah?" she whimpered with a quivering voice.

He leaned forward, clutching his sister tightly to him as she began to cry in earnest, beginning to soak his shirt. He faintly heard another gasp similar to Rebekah's and turned his head a fraction to see Finn sitting up, and was glad to see Vivienne leaning over him and giving him blood bags, faintly murmuring to him in Old Norse and assuring him that everything was okay.

He felt Bekah's fingers unclench from his shirt, and she began to twist around, taking in her surroundings for the first time.

"Lijah, where are we?"

Her question was more of a demand for answers, and Elijah felt relief and happiness at having his bossy, bratty little sister returned to him. He turned to check on Finn, and saw that he was drinking from a blood bag, still looking panicked, but Vivienne was gently patting his shoulder, continuing to speak soothingly in Old Norse.

When she saw Elijah looking at her, Vivienne stood and faced him, nodding slightly, signaling that Finn was alright for now. A feeling of contentment and peace began to spread, until Bekah's suddenly let out a disgusted growl.

"Ugh, what is that?"

His sister was staring at Vivienne, eying her up and down and clearly judging her as inadequate. Elijah noted that she was still in her filthy gown and looked altogether _messy._ But he almost laughed at how unintentionally accurate a question his sister had asked and Vivienne, having clearly heard the remark, let her composure slip for a moment when an amused smirk came over her. Before anyone said another word however, there was a blur of motion as Kol sat up and took in the scene.

In less than a second he stood directly behind Vivienne, wrapping his arms around her waist and chest and pulling her against him. His face shifted as his fangs descended, and he roughly tore at Vivienne's throat.

Except that he didn't.

His fangs slid off of her skin, pressing the flesh in slightly but not breaking the skin or doing any actual harm. Kol pulled back and Elijah watched as a perplexed frown covered his face before he dove back toward the curve of her neck, attempting to feed from her once again.

His siblings were silent, not processing what they were seeing, but Elijah had already witnessed her apparent invulnerability, and was instead watching Vivienne's reaction. When he grabbed her she had remained impassive, and after Kol had tried to feed the first time she had bitten her lip and he caught her small smirk. When he tried yet again she finally broke, and he heard a faint snort of laughter.

Reaching down and prying his arms off of her Vivienne stepped away from Kol and turned to face him directly, and Elijah felt a strange sense of relief flood him when she stepped away from his brother that he chose not to examine.

She reached toward Kol and patted his cheek in an amused manner, saying with a dry tone, "As peculiar as that feels, it probably isn't doing much for you."

Kol stood frozen, looking, but as soon as Vivienne handed him a blood bag, he looked ecstatic. However, instead of biting into the blood bag, he flashed his hand forward and gripped Vivienne's wrist, spinning her so that she faced him once again. Elijah started to move toward them, feeling the urge to protect Vivienne from his younger brother, even knowing that he couldn't do her any harm, but Bekah's hand on his arm tightened, and he stilled his feet.

Instead of attacking, he watched as Kol smiled widely and lifted her hand to his mouth, pressing a kiss to her knuckles before turning it over and nipping at her wrist, once again not breaking the skin.

"Now what might you be, darling?"

The room became silent, and Elijah wondered if any of his guesses were going to turn out to have been correct when she leaned closer to him, but instead of listing off a species, she instead answered lightly, "Soon I may explain the specifics. For now, I'm the one who is going to keep you all alive."


	7. Chapter 7

After her statement Vivienne turned away from Kol, scanning the room, and Elijah was shocked when she grinned earnestly for the first time since she had appeared. She turned to him completely and smiled as she asked, "I'd say we were incredibly successful, wouldn't you?"

He nodded in agreement, and his siblings continued to stare at her. Noticing the attention, Vivienne suddenly calmed down a bit and looked thoughtful. Somehow, Elijah knew that she didn't want to introduce herself. When she had announced herself as their protector, he and Niklaus had not taken it well, and he knew his siblings would react much the same. Giving Vivienne a quick nod when her eyes met his, he turned to his brothers and sister.

"This is Vivienne. She aided me in rescuing you. Without her, you would still be in those coffins."

Bekah let out a scoff and waved her hand in the air dismissively before saying, "Yes, yes, fantastic, but what is she and why does she look like a creature from a swamp? Some sort of earthen witch?"

Elijah watched, greatly amused at the incredibly offended look on Rebekah's face when Vivienne shrugged, walking past her and effectively dismissing the question. She approached Niklaus and bent down to check on him, and because their eyes were following her, Kol, Rebekah, and Finn all suddenly realized who was in the room with them.

Surging toward him immediately, Kol let out a snarl as he ground out, "I'm going to tear his bloody lungs out." However, a moment later he hastily scrambled backwards with surprise when Vivienne turned around quickly and stood over Niklaus defensively while hissing loudly with her black veins spreading across all of the visible skin on her body, talons showing, and eyes entirely black.

"No. No one will be killing anyone. You will all talk like the civilized ancient creatures you are, and resolve any immediate quarrels. Without the use of daggers or stakes. Which I will be keeping for the time being."

Elijah had seen her pocket all of the daggers after the confrontation and honestly was a bit relieved that they were in the hands of a third party. But when Vivienne began scanning the faces of his siblings, she seemed to recognize their fear, and almost instantly reverted back to the girl she'd been moments ago in appearance. She straightened from her crouch and ran her hand through her hair self consciously, an idiosyncrasy Elijah had noted she often performed when stressed.

"I apologize. I – am no longer in the mood for violence."

His siblings still seemed a bit shocked, so Elijah turned to her and nodded, saying with authority, "None of us will kill each other tonight."

She nodded back at him, looking distracted as she continued to simply look back and forth between them all, until Kol finally broke the silence, casually looking between Elijah and Vivienne before asking, "Not that I am complaining, but what happened to Nik?"

Vivienne, still unfocused, nonchalantly murmured, "I broke his neck a few times. He was also acting upon a truly startling quantity of homicidal urges, therefore I threw him through a wall. That's why he's covered with debris."

With all of them gaping at her save for Elijah, Vivienne walked out of the room and said over her shoulder, "I'll be in the kitchen, come find me when you're all done and have questions."

In her wake a silence spanned as the siblings looked at one another, each in clothing from a different era and the realization hit that although they were together again, it would not suddenly be a peaceful coexistence between their family.

Once again Kol brought it on himself to break the silence, slapping Elijah on the back and saying, "I like the feisty ones. Care to set me up?"

* * *

The moment she was out of sight, Vivienne disappeared. If any of the Mikaelsons were in grave danger she would sense it after she'd performed a discrete blood binding on them all. For now, she had something important to do.

Every time she materialized it felt as though hours had passed when in reality it was a mere second or two – at times instant even. But seeking out those who she had even a vague connection to was immensely easier. And _this_ connection was anything but vague.

When she found the girl she had been seeking, she spoke to her back immediately.

"You must leave this place and never return."

Elena Gilbert jumped a foot in the air before whirling around. Tears began flowing a moment later and Vivienne felt a combination of apprehension and sorrow.

"Viv? Stefan said, but – how are you alive?"

The doppelganger ran over to her and immediately threw her arms around her, making Vivienne cringe just the smallest amount, not yet used to physical contact. As gently as she could, she untangled the arms of the girl and stepped back to meet her eyes. She could sense the younger Salvatore in the room but disregarded his presence. They had more important things to worry about.

"I apologize, Elena. But I'm no longer Vivienne, we merely share a face. And you must listen to me."

Elena shook her head side to side and opened her mouth to protest but Vivienne cut her off.

"The hybrid _cannot_ know you are alive. And he will discover it if you stay here. He will discover you if you turn into a vampire and stay here. There are very few options. The only thing that was shown to me was drastic. You must relocate to the other side of the country. Dye and cut your hair. Plastic surgery, or drastic makeup. It is the _only_ way. And you must remove that necklace."

Elena's hand flew up to her neck and she looked incredibly confused, so Vivienne sped up the process and quickly reached forward to pull it off of the girl.

The Salvatore cut in at this point and sounded angry as he said, "You can't just come in here and tell her what to do! Elena has been through enough, she deserves a normal life-"

Vivienne retorted in an equally annoyed tone when she said, "There will be no life at all. She will die before college and live as a vampire at _best_." She turned to Elena and spoke more softly to the girl who looked both confused and devastated.

"I ask that you trust me for a moment. That is all it will take. I have not simply seen your deaths. I _know_ of your deaths. The knowledge was given to me as a gift for my service, and I assume your Vivienne would have wanted you safe."

Elena's tears began flooding over the edge of her eyes, but she nodded. Vivienne leaned forward at her agreement and gently held her face as she drew closer. It was only a second later that she initiated the mind blending process and showed Elena every possibility of her death. Vivienne did not know the future or how these would come about, but she was absolutely, completely _positive_ that these were the outcomes. The only way Elena Gilbert would live was if she followed Vivienne's advice.

When she backed away she dispassionately noted that Stefan was on the edge of the repelling circle that always surrounded her species when the mind blending occurred. Her demonic face was on display, and the vampire must have been more than a little panicked. He immediately rushed over to Elena and cradled her as the horror covered her face.

"Stefan – Stefan I saw it. There's nothing I can do," the girl's voice cracked and Vivienne's pity increased before she saw the girl's resolve harden before continuing, "we need to compel everyone. Jeremy first. I need to be dead. And I'm going to need a new name. It's the only way."

The vampire began speaking to the girl in a soothing tone, and Vivienne was done. It had only taken a handful of minutes, but her more pressing concern was to return to the Mikaelsons. She had done her duty and tried to save the doppelganger. Now she had to get back to the family of ancient melodramatic Vikings.


	8. Chapter 8

Walking around the kitchen of the foreclosure she and her charges were inhabiting for now, Vivienne was equal parts fascinated and sorrowful. She didn't know how much time in this realm had passed since her death, though the age of her blood cousin seemed much the same, so perhaps a year or two.

It had hurt in a strange way to lie to the girl. Well, not _lie_ so much as tell half truths. Vivienne's species had been changed after she died, this was true, but it wasn't as though a new being had been inserted into her new body. She was a different person because of her experiences in the last millennium, not because the human version had been banished or destroyed.

She could not recall many of the specifics of her life as a human, being a mere 22 years old when she had died compared to her 1000 years in the underworld. But she and Elena had been close, this she vaguely remembered. Her mother had been the older sister of Miranda and Jenna Sommers, but had always been distant from the family. After her single mother had died of cancer when she had been young, it was her godparents that had stepped in and housed her. But her financial support and the place that ultimately felt like home was supplied by the Gilbert family, specifically Grayson.

When she'd been told the truth about the ring he'd given her at the last moment on her life, she'd wondered if it was a blessing or a curse. A ring with the ability to bring someone back if they had only just barely been on the edge of a benign death such as suffocation was good in theory. But Vivienne had been brought back over and over again without reprieve.

All in all, it was both a comfort and a torment to see that the world was much the same as when she left. She was trying very hard to drown out the shouting and screaming in the adjoining room as the Mikaelson siblings began to hopefully put the past behind them.

A loud shattering sound echoed through the house, and she distinctly remembered having noted the china display. As she anticipated, much more shattering occurred soon after. She could sense that Niklaus had awakened a few minutes ago, and the majority of the shouts seemed directed at him. For now she could only hope that the arguments would subside.

The sink was a chrome that seemed new, without a single scuff mark on the faucet. Drawn to it, Vivienne turned on the cold water tap as high as it could go. The jet of water immediately shot out, splashing up and spraying her with droplets. The cold didn't bother her, but out of instinct she leaped back. Her breathing sped up, and she remembered the feeling of the water rushing into her lungs. Choking her again and again and again. As quickly as she could, she tried to turn the handle back to its original position, only to snap it off entirely after the water stopped. A strange satisfaction spread over her knowing that now nobody could turn it on.

Drifting around the kitchen some more, she walked to the appliances and tried to remember from her human life centuries ago what each machine did. She gave up after a minute or two, but concluded that she recognized on some level every appliance.

The arguing grew louder in the other room, with Rebekah's voice becoming particularly shrill as she screamed about a man she was in love with, or had been before being neutralized. Vivienne had very little patience – rare for someone her age – and she soon grew bored as the same arguments seemed to circle around and around, little progress being made. Her interactions with others had been quite limited while in the underworld. She would typically only guide one soul at a time and protocol insisted that she maintain a degree of separation from her charges, and when she met with her superiors they were quite brisk. However even as she was newly adjusting to the constant presence of countless others around her, she knew that their arguments were growing tedious.

When the voices paused briefly – perhaps deciding which argument to entertain next, or to catch their breaths – Vivienne decided to intercede. When she materialized in the room, appearing just beside Finn, the vampires all jumped apart from Klaus and Elijah, who were evidently growing used to her sudden presence.

"I tire of this. Are there any immediate concerns that I can solve?"

The Mikaelsons all glanced at one another warily, and it was Elijah who cleared his throat and seemed to answer for them all when he evenly responded, "No, I believe your assistance isn't needed."

Klaus opened his mouth to speak, but Vivienne cut him off, impatient and wanting to proceed with her endeavor.

"If you would be so kind as to relocate to the parlor room that still remains intact, I believe it would be best to expand my previous explanations so that we may set out from this home and venture to wherever it is you wish to settle."

The family seemed to agree and they all swiftly walked through the corridor to the room on the opposite side of the house, sitting on the couches and chairs as soon as they entered. However to her mild embarrassment, Vivienne became distracted by the large bay window that allowed her to see the sun beginning to set.

It was a sight she had not beheld in quite some time.

The sound of a throat being cleared behind her pulled her from her musing and she quickly turned back to the vampires, taking a seat across from them as she began to tell the family as much as she could.

"Homer was fairly close in his description."

There was a beat of silence from all of the siblings, but to her surprise it was Rebekah who looked considering and asked, "Do you mean the bard? The Greek who wrote the Odyssey?"

Vivienne nodded along, having taken for granted that they would immediately know of whom she spoke. There was a brief flash of shame when she evaluated the surprise she had felt at the girl's show of intelligence, and she firmly decided to never again underestimate or doubt her.

"He was one of only eight in history who left the underworld still mortal. But his descriptions were true in a sense. Realms of peace for the good, torment for the despicable. Rivers that once crossed cannot be uncrossed."

Of course the moment she paused to collect her bearings, every one of the Mikaelsons burst out with questions. With the multiple voices each trying to outdo the other, she was barely able to make out a single question. However, it was the question asked by two separate voices that she decided to answer: what she was.

"The myths are not entirely correct, something I am sure you have come to know as creatures yourselves. But the closest description to what I am and the official title I hold is a Rusalka."

Klaus immediately leaned forward and let his forearms rest against his legs, drumming his fingers along his knees as he spoke.

"A Slavic myth. A demon born of a violent, watery death that drags others to their graves. Though some sources claim they are benevolent."

Vivienne gave him a small smile, and was interested in the look of curiosity he shot her way. It was perhaps the most earnest expression she had seen him wear thus far, so it was mildly disappointing to know that she could not tell the Mikaelsons much more.

"The myth is close, I suppose. Rusalkas are incarnations of women who die in natural water, but we do not take the souls of the innocent. We barely venture out of the underworld – typically only to recruit new women to serve with us. We guide souls instead once they've reached our realm."

Kol began speaking in a slightly condescending and disbelieving tone when he said, "And where do you guide them? Do you fancy yourself some sort of guardian angel?"

Vivienne frowned at his insolence and had to remind herself that her objective was not to harm him. Perhaps later when the vampires trusted her a bit better she could teach him proper respect.

"I am not an angel by any means. And the official Guardians outrank me."

When the group seemed on the brink of speaking again, Vivienne sighed and slumped back against the chair. Her day had gone on far too long, and she knew that she would have to hibernate soon if she was to reach her peak once again.

"I grow tired of speaking about myself. That is all I will be saying on the subject at the present time."

Klaus immediately began babbling and his voice sounded vaguely threatening, but Vivienne was more focused on Elijah. He was staring at his phone with great concentration and only broke his line of sight to look up and stare at her in the same assessing way. When she caught a glimpse of what he was searching she decided to interject and save him some time.

"It's I-E-N-N-E. I know the name is typically spelled with an I-A-N at its end. I assume you are searching the internet for some sort of record of mine? I'm sure that my first name and this town's name will provide the information you seek."

A second later, the quick inhale he made let her know that he had found some sort of result.

"Vivienne Sommers. You died at twenty-two in the car crash that killed the Gilberts. Your body was never recovered."

This wasn't exactly news to Vivienne. She'd been there, after all, and died quite a few times before being taken from the realm. So she merely nodded in agreement and gestured for him to go on. It didn't escape her notice that Rebekah, Kol, and Finn didn't look at all phased by the knowledge. And why would they be? They had not been alive long enough to witness the discovery of the doppelganger or her family name, though through the shouting Vivienne ascertained that Niklaus had already revealed that he'd broken his curse.

Klaus however, immediately spoke over his brother.

"You were related to the doppelganger? Love, I don't know if you've heard, but I've recently taken to killing your family members. I don't see why you would want to hang around when you can leave and not be reminded of their murders."

Vivienne raised both of her eyebrows and gave him a look that was meant to clearly question his sanity. With yet another annoyed sigh, she stood and stretched only to walk over to Klaus, who tensed as if preparing himself for another attack. Instead, she flicked him on the forehead and rolled her eyes.

"You are very bad at bothering me on purpose. It seems that only when you are acting of your own volition I feel the desire to decimate your person."

Vivienne left the room once more to allow the siblings some privacy and the opportunity to decide what they wished to do next. Wherever it was they wanted to go, it sounded better than the place she'd died.


	9. Chapter 9

"I like her. I think we should keep her around. Not that we could apparently do anything to get her to leave even if we wanted to."

Elijah watched as Bekah snorted in response to Kol's declaration and felt a flash of fondness. This was the first time all of them had been undaggered and together in _centuries_. Screaming at Niklaus had allowed his younger siblings to do away with some of their anger, and the familiar bickering caused an intense longing to grow in him at the idea of them staying together.

Finn hadn't said much so far, but Elijah had seen the warm curiosity he had been looking at Vivienne with. It wasn't fondness so much as appreciation – something Elijah could relate to.

Elijah detested feeling indebted to someone. But Vivienne's actions had created that feeling. However at the same time she caused a protective instinct to well up inside of him. She had _united his family_. That was something he could never pay her back for, no matter how hard he tried. The moment it had truly sunk in that Vivienne had accomplished her goal, he had vowed to do his best to protect her.

It was backwards, he was sure, to try to protect someone who very literally called herself the protector of his family. But Vivienne seemed unused to social interactions and displayed both unimaginable power as well as startling naivety. Elijah figured that it was the least he could do to try to guide her as she acclimated back into this realm – if her explanations were to be believed.

Elijah had always loved the classics. Both Greek and Roman epic tales lined his bookshelves, so his understanding of the Greek concept of the underworld was quite comprehensive. But to think that it existed in a sense was entirely strange. The epic tales were truly that – mere tales. But Elijah figured that many who were ignorant to the supernatural probably regarded his species in the same way.

He had resolved to find a period in time to ask her more about the plane of existence she called the underworld. But for now, he would simply try to keep his siblings from attacking one another as they decided where to head next.

The conversation that followed, however, was surprisingly civil. There was one place that all of them but Finn had ventured to at different times, and Finn hadn't expressed a desire to go anywhere in particular. But the city the rest of them had in common would be entertaining enough for Kol and Bekah while he and Klaus reestablished the Mikaelson name as one to be feared and respected.

Besides, New Orleans had an enormous werewolf population that Klaus could use as he began trying to make more hybrids.

* * *

Rebekah was – well, perturbed was most likely the most accurate description for the emotion that she was experiencing.

"The thing is incredibly peculiar. Why on earth did she insist on laying down in the _trunk_ of the automobile?"

Nik's response was a bored drawl, as if he was already used to the creature's strange bizarre when he spoke.

"Most likely so she could lay down and fall into the strange coma she seems to be in currently."

Rebekah glanced over the seat she was in to peer at the woman and saw that she indeed hadn't moved for the entire duration of the drive thus far. The automobile Klaus had compelled for the family was enormous, with seven seats. Of course Rebekah would have insisted on the girl not sitting beside her – muddy and uncouth as she was – but she still could have had her own seat.

Vivienne was still in the state of hibernation she'd entered four hours before. She had not woken up when the family had bickered once again and Elijah had been forced to shout from the driver's seat to calm them down. But the appearance of the woman had dissuaded anyone from touching her.

The woman was stretched out, and black veins covered all of the skin she was baring. Talons of the same shade were extending from her fingers _and_ toes. After Klaus had described the power she held, none of them wanted to risk moving her or attempting to harm her. Thus far she had not directly attacked any of them, and Elijah had insisted on allowing her to accompany them.

Rebekah slumped back in her seat, bored once more and not enjoying the 'rock' music that Nik had chosen to play throughout the vehicle. The accessibility of music in this millennium was wondrous, however, and she intended to explore it as soon as she could.

Kol chose in that moment to once more pipe up in some attempt to provoke Nik to violence – Kol _always_ craved violence of some sort.

"Well Nik, it'll be strange not having the daggers to hold over our heads whenever you become upset or offended. Especially with the psychotic bodyguard apparently keeping the peace."

Instead of rising to the bait, Nik looked quite serious when he replied, "Do not underestimate her. She had the power to subdue me and read my mind."

They all quieted at that, and Rebekah could admit that it was a frightening concept. There wasn't supposed to be any creature in the world that could overpower them, and she had taken for granted her safety from any and all.

Finn was the one to ask about her next, looking at Klaus and Elijah seeing as they were the ones who had been around her longest. Finn had not engaged in conversation very often, and the despair he radiated was something Rebekah wished she could ignore. Instead she felt a pang of pity and resolved to try to bring him out of his depression, even if they had not been particularly close during their lives or afterlives.

"The conversion of time in the underworld to the time on earth seems fascinating. We should find out more when she –"

"It isn't as linear as one would think. Five thousand years on earth may be twenty in the underworld. Or in this case, one thousand years in the underworld may be approximately one or two on this plane. It was entirely by chance – I'm unsure of the mechanics."

They all startled when Vivienne suddenly spoke with arms crossed and propped up on the edge of the seats, head nonchalantly resting on her forearms. Her appearance had reverted back to that she had first looked like, the veins and talons gone.

Vivienne looked Rebekah up and down while scrutinizing her in a way that made her feel strangely vulnerable, especially after having just heard about the extent of the creature's powers. However, her next words were the exact opposite of what she had been expecting.

"I appreciate your style of dress, it's quite lovely. When we reach New Orleans shall we venture off and procure new garments? I wish to bathe and would prefer to change out of my uniform as soon as our circumstances allow it."

Completely caught off guard, Rebekah didn't rein in her disdainful and mocking tone when she said, " _That_ dreadful thing is your _uniform_? You look as though you've been rolling around in mud."

Vivienne looked unbothered by her comment and shrugged in a surprisingly human gesture when she said, "Almost, but not quite. To reach this realm I had to swim across multiple rivers in the underworld and crawl out of the body of water I died in, where the my portal deposited me. I didn't have the time to alter my appearance before materializing where Klaus and Elijah were located."

There was a beat of silence in the car, but after a second Rebekah eloquently replied to Vivienne's words.

"Oh."


	10. Chapter 10

_Alright guys - in this chapter we have some serious world-building. You don't need to remember specifics - when I reference the new info later on I'll be sure to include reminders of sorts. To be clear - THIS IS NOT CANON COMPLIANT WITH 'THE ORIGINALS'. Enjoy and let me know what you think thus far! xx  
_

* * *

 _Five Weeks Later_

Klaus walked into the living room of the mansion and found Vivienne ungracefully sprawled on the couch, playing with something in her lap. She looked for all intensive purposes like a very bored human.

The demon – she became annoyed when she was called one, so of course Klaus did it as often as he could – had become a startlingly easy fixture in their lives as his family had taken over New Orleans once more. Subduing all of their enemies had been simple when they had Vivienne standing beside them during negotiations, interceding whenever she believed one of the members of his family to be in danger. The reputation of the ally that stayed by the Mikaelsons' side had spread.

The change in the woman was obvious as well. Physically, it was drastic. To Kol's amusement and Rebekah's disgust, it had turned out that after a good wash, Vivienne's hair was a dirty blonde, not brown. Because of the outrageous tangles, she had chopped off two feet of it and it now only brushed her collar bones with relaxed waves. Seeing their occasionally talon-equipped, self proclaimed protector in torn skinny jeans and over sized men's v-necks was jarring. It was almost easy to forget what she was, unless one looked into her pitch black irises.

Vivienne's antiquated form of speech had lessened and become a bit more like the vernacular of modern humans while slang had also entered her conversations. She was less on edge, and to Klaus's amusement, turned out to be very snarky when she interacted with him.

Well, less on edge after he had stopped trying to kill her following their first few days together. He had weighed the pros and cons to murdering her and decided that ultimately having her on this plane would be beneficial to his family. But her hovering _had_ to end. Especially since _he_ was the one she had seemed to latch on to and follow around the most often.

Before he could address her, she looked up and made eye contact as she said in a tone that was entirely too normal for her bizarre question, "What are your three favorite colors?"

Klaus paused and stopped walking toward her, searching her expression for any ulterior motive that would indicate a greater significance to her questioning. Instead she only looked at him with an expectant face. Deciding to humor her, Klaus thought it over for a second before responding.

"Black, red, and blue."

A small frown covered Vivienne's face at his answer, and under her breath she muttered to herself, "That won't do. They won't look good at all together. Maybe black, red, and orange?"

Before he had to ask what the hell she was doing, she sat up faced him fully.

"I'm attempting to re-learn things from my time as a human, see if perhaps I retained things through muscle memory. The internet was quite easy, but that's because I was obsessed as a human and missed it the entire time I was in the underworld. That, and coffee. But today it's crafts, so I'm weaving bracelets."

Klaus stopped in his tracks as he had been approaching her. There was no way she was actually constructing 'friendship bracelets' – but peering at her hands and seeing the bundles of thin string, Klaus saw that was exactly the case. Who the _bloody hell_ had made this woman an all-powerful demon?

Before he could mock her, Vivienne looked up again to meet his eyes and said in an entirely serious voice, "I'll be offended if you don't wear it." Only the slight twitch of a smile at the end of her sentence made it clear that she was joking, most likely trying to provoke a reaction out of him.

"You are as absurd as you are superfluous. My family has been united. You can stop trailing behind my very footsteps."

"No I can't. My job doesn't have an end date."

Klaus felt his interest peak at that. Vivienne had been fairly close-mouthed about the exact parameters of what it was she was doing on Earth. Each time they had tried to wheedle out of her who it was exactly that had sent her to guard them, she'd merely shrugged and responded, "A soul I guided. Took the longest to find peace of any I have been with."

However, Klaus still had a point to make before he could try to get a few explanations from her, so he decided to be straightforward.

"You hover. It's distracting."

Instead of growing offended as he had predicted, Vivienne snorted in amusement and looked down to her lap. She began measuring lengths of string in the colors she had been muttering about. Just when he thought she wouldn't say anything to answer his statement, she spoke in a lilting tone.

"You think yourself truly invulnerable. It's adorably hubristic."

He struggled not to snarl at that. His pride was _earned_. Klaus was invincible. He was the most powerful creature on Earth, and his father was desiccated somewhere states away from them. He was working on finding a white oak stake to permanently end the man. Vivienne's dismissal of his power was incredibly irritating.

"You're quite infuriating."

"Join the club. Most of the time I feel the same."

Here was his opening. Vivienne was stubborn, and he knew if he continued trying to command her to stop she would only stay closer to him. So, he decided to see if she had retained certain social cues from her time as a human. Particularly the act of seduction and more accurately, being charmed.

"Aw, but other times you like me?"

Klaus spoke with a playful and smooth tone, but Vivienne seemed to stiffen up entirely as her hands froze the rapid movements they had begun with the strings. Klaus could see her breathe in and out deeply, staring down at her lap.

"I don't like it when you try to manipulate me, Klaus. Obviously nobody likes to be on the receiving end, but it's particularly insulting after all I have done for you. I'm not stupid. You want something. You can just ask me, you moron."

…Alright, Klaus had to hand it to her. It _was_ a bit demeaning to treat her like a pushover or someone who could easily be tricked. As much as he wanted to deny it, he respected her. Vivienne was powerful, and beyond that, she had displayed nothing but fierce loyalty. So he went along with her suggestion.

"I want to know more about your duties in the underworld. And what exactly your mission is here."

Vivienne placed the beginning of her bracelet on the coffee table beside the sofa and turned to face him. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her thighs, drumming her fingers along her knees.

"Not so hard, was it? I don't know where to start. My job description, I guess. I'm a Rusalka – it is both the name of my species, and the title of my position in the hierarchy of the underworld's creatures. To be clear, our titles come from many different pagan religions – no single one. The mortals who were allowed to leave the underworld still human belonged to many different times and places when they documented it. Anyway, I'm fairly low ranking.

The three Fates are the rulers. They're also known as the Norns in Norse mythology. They are the ones who occasionally tell us when someone is meant to die and how it will happen. Otherwise, they simply parse out duties to us underlings.

The Valkyries are the most powerful behind them. There are very few. Valkyries aren't born or created when one dies like the rest – their abilities and power are earned when the Fates bestow the position to someone they believe showed true valor.

The Banshees come next. To keep it brief, they are directly told when everyone will die.

Below them are the Fraveshi. Personal spirits of sorts. You must understand – only a fraction of souls enter the underworld, and I have no idea how they are chosen or if there is any specific criteria. Many go to the 'other side' or whatever heaven or hell exists. The underworld isn't truly a religious place of paradise, it is made up of several dimensions. The Fraveshi are sent to the souls who are chosen and bring them to the underworld.

That is where the Rusalkas come in. We're the ones who are assigned souls and it is our job to help them find peace. It means we travel through sections of the underworld - countless dimensions – to help them. It can take an hour for a soul to settle, or decades. Even centuries.

And as for what it is I'm doing here – I'm trying to protect your family. Keep you from physical harm. Try to ensure your happiness. Finn has been difficult to aid. His soul flickers and he longs for death. I don't know if you've been too _busy_ ," here Vivienne paused in her monologue, glaring at him harshly before she continued, "to notice, but a lot of the time I am away from you or Rebekah – bless her heart, the girl can be naïve - I try to help him see the beauty in the world. I wish you'd do the same.

Anyway. I was released from my duties. To be honest, I think the Fates see me as a bit of an experiment. What I asked for – it has never been done, to permanently walk the mortal plane once one has been made a 'demon'. So my request was granted. I wasn't given a day that I have to go back or anything."

Klaus didn't respond to her right away. He planned on writing down what she had said immediately and sharing it with his siblings, something she surely knew. In a way, Klaus hated learning all of this. Being made aware of entire worlds and dimensions of which he had no knowledge or reference. But it was incredibly useful to know this information now.

Vivienne had turned back to making her bracelets, and Klaus knew she was done speaking to him about these things. He had long since suspected that the reason she didn't like talking about the underworld was the fact that it reminded everyone that she was a demon – a creature that didn't rightfully belong among them.

But Klaus had to admit, Vivienne wasn't terrible company to keep.


	11. Chapter 11

Vivienne was hunched over with her hands braced on her knees, struggling not to begin heaving and lose any dignity she might have left.

New Orleans was quite a distance from the river in Mystic Falls where she died, and the location acted as her source of power while she stayed on Earth. Being so far from it for an extended period of time was wearing on her. She had never before used her powers so much in such a short period of time. Time, however, was exactly what she _didn't have_. Finn's soul was growing dimmer each day, and his longing for death was nearly tangible.

Vivienne was doing everything she could to get him interested in the modern world. However, technology was far too advanced for him to even attempt to become savvy just yet, and the emotional overload was prioritized for the moment over his functional re-introduction into society. He found most of what Vivienne showed him interesting from what she could tell, but not even coffee or roller coasters was enough incentive for him to want to _live_. She had side-lined her attempts to grow closer to the rest of the Mikaelson siblings for the last month, to her dismay. But Finn needed – not _her_ , really, but someone to at least watch him.

When Vivienne looked at Finn, she couldn't help but detest Niklaus just a little bit. It was an unwelcome feeling, seeing as Niklaus was actually her favori –

Fuck. Nope. That was a thought she would suppress for the next thousand years.

Anyway, nobody deserved to be locked away and taken from everything they loved simply because they were an inconvenience to his plans. However, she was certain she was close to finding the thing she believed could convince Finn Mikaelson to avoid pursuing his own demise.

Vivienne straightened her posture and took deep, even breaths to calm herself and prepare for the next step in her journey. The witch laying across the couch beside her had been quite helpful and voluntary in her part to help Vivienne, though for the next few hours the mortal would be incapacitated. However Vivienne had to look away from the unconscious person just a second later. If she allowed herself to think too deeply about what it was she was doing, she might not find the conviction to continue.

She had used the mind blending process on three willing and fourteen unwilling individuals in the last six days.

It was – sickening, perhaps, was the closest word she could use to describe it. Mind blending had been created as an ability of the Rusalka for a very functional purpose: souls that wished to find peace could share memories and information with their guide so that the correct dimension for them could be found. Instead Vivienne was now using it as a weapon, a form of mental assault to gather information on a certain individual.

Goddamn it. The witch had been a lovely help and embarked on the mind blend willfully, probably intrigued by her more than actually eager to aid Vivienne. But if the information she had just garnered was not fruitful, she would have to begin her search anew. This witch had been a dead end of sorts.

After taking another minute to gauge her energy level, Vivienne took a deep breath and teleported to the location that she had just been given.

* * *

Sage stared down at the instruction manual to the new cable box she'd hooked up, attempting to piece it together. It said that the –

"Oh, thank god. I have no idea if I could have rallied to start all over again."

Sage quickly turned, facing the person in her living room. It was a young woman who looked entirely too relieved to be seeing a 900 year old vampire, especially since Sage had no idea who the fuck she was and _intended to find out_.

Before she could rush over, however, the woman simply vanished before suddenly appearing just beside her.

"I'm Vivienne, I'm here to bring you to Finn Mikaelson."

And then the world around her disappeared.

* * *

Rebekah wandered into the kitchen, fairly at ease after a good night's sleep, and poured herself the rest of the coffee in the pot. Coffee had been the first thing that Vivienne had introduced her to, and after tasting it herself Rebekah now understood how someone could miss the beverage for one thousand years. The demon in question was seated at the breakfast bar, neatly cutting the sections out of the grapefruit half that was in front of her.

Without really thinking about it, Rebekah glanced around to see where Finn could be. Vivienne had been practically glued to his hip the last few weeks, to her amusement. Finn seemed like he didn't really know how to deal with the woman and often grew flustered when she acted like the women of the twenty first century, behavior that would have been scandalous a millennia ago.

On the bright side, Vivienne being attached to Finn's side had allowed Rebekah to see Nik's jealous side emerge, something always quite humorous. Especially since neither Nik nor Vivienne seemed to actually realize what was going on.

It was like some sort of 'rom-com'. Nik and Vivienne had been getting on each other's nerves for the first few weeks that their family had settled in New Orleans, with Nik making a fuss over the woman's involvement with his life. And _of course_ the second Vivienne shifted her focus to someone else – and especially Finn, who she knew Niklaus saw as his opposite – he threw a fit. Well, his version of a fit. Which meant that he made sure to try to get on Vivienne's nerves whenever he saw her. It was astonishingly like watching children deal with their first bout of infatuation.

Sipping at her coffee slowly, Rebekah let out a content hum before wandering over to where Vivienne sat and perching beside her.

"So where is Finn? You've been attached to him for a while."

With an equally relaxed and nonchalant tone Vivienne responded, "He's out to brunch with Sage and catching up."

Rebekah clapped her hand over her mouth, utterly devoid of composure as she struggled not to spit out her coffee. When she finally swallowed her mouthful and concluded that she had not spilled anything, she turned and flicked Vivienne's arm while saying, "He's with the peasant whore? How on Earth –"

Vivienne tensed, and any lightness or ease she'd had before vanished. In a cold tone she cut in and said, "It wasn't like he just _happened upon_ the woman he loves. I had to bust my ass to make this happen. So if you do anything to disrupt this, I will be very upset."

Rebekah was honestly a bit taken aback by Vivienne's words. Vivienne hadn't really presented herself as threatening in a while, instead seeming to do the opposite and immersed herself into human culture. But the dark look in her eye – something that became literal when a second later her eyes turned entirely black and demonic – was inhuman.

"Why would I do something to disrupt them?"

Vivienne snorted and turned back to her breakfast, taking a large bite of grapefruit and gulp of her own coffee before answering.

"It was more of a general address, I should have saved it for more than just you. We both know Niklaus will get twitchy at yet another variable he can't control thrown in to New Orleans as he plots his takeover."

Rebekah felt a coy smile cover her face and teased, "So now that you're done with Finn you'll go back to Nik? He'll be pleased."

Vivienne looked – fairly shocked, actually. Her eyes reverted back to their normal appearance and she seemed at a loss for words. After she straightened herself up, however, she responded in a forced tone of nonchalance.

"I have no idea why you would imply anything about myself and Niklaus. I am his protector, same as any of you. If anything, he likes me the least."

At that, Rebekah finally began laughing. To her delight, Vivienne seemed to grow even more flustered. Before Rebekah could make another comment, Vivienne lurched up from her seat and said, "I've got to run a few errands. I'll see you later today."

She was gone before Rebekah could so much as say another word.

But _this_? This could be fun. Rebekah hadn't had a chance to play match-maker in a century.

* * *

 _Hello everyone, I've gone back and added the translations to the Old Norse used in the second chapter. I'm sorry for the delay, work kicked my ass majorly this past month. I'll be updating more frequently from here on out. As always, let me know what you think!_


	12. Chapter 12

_Two Weeks Later_

It had begun as a fairly standard day, with a negotiation with the New Orleans witches scheduled for the early afternoon. The coven had been branching out lately and contacting old bloodlines. Vivienne was quite sure that it should have been obvious that it was inevitable that Klaus and Elijah would feel the need to intercede and speak with them – keep them in line, essentially.

The walk to the meeting ground in the center of the wooded area near the bayou, however, was fraught with tension at the moment. Klaus had made a comment about bringing Vivienne along due to the fact that she frightened their opponents. Usually it would be quite a compliment concerning her prowess, but…

Vivienne no longer _wanted_ Klaus to see her as merely a formidable presence to dispense when he wished. She had longed for him to see her as an equal, of course, and they _were_ at that point. But in recent weeks – in recent weeks she'd been hoping that he would have expressed some sort of change in his view of her.

Hades knew that Vivienne had been nothing short of transparent in her own affection. It was all Rebekah's fucking fault – Vivienne _knew_ the girl had some sort of scheme. She'd been the one to make sure Klaus's sarcastic and humorous side emerged whenever Vivienne was around, as well as the brief moments of brotherly concern he showed for her. Being around him nearly constantly certainly didn't make it easy for her to put him out of her mind.

It was embarrassing that Vivienne's feelings for the hybrid had become a bit more than friendly, at least in her own opinion. She hadn't _meant_ to start liking the hybrid. For starters, it was massively inconvenient. But from what she vaguely remembered of her human life, 'asshole' had always been her type when she'd searched for one night stands during her college years.

Vivienne was repulsed by herself. She was on Earth to guard this family, not become an immature, desperate slab of worthlessness. Because truly, when it came to the hybrid she sometimes caved. Letting him do dangerous things and put himself in danger was easy as soon as he even began flirting with her, even though she knew it was mockery.

It. Was. _Disgusting_.

She was pulled out of her musing when Klaus walked up just beside her after leaving his original place at Elijah's side. He seemed entirely too relaxed when he asked, "So, ready to terrify the foreign witches, love?"

When she opened her mouth to retort she was still utterly unprepared as to what it was she could even _say_. How did you tell someone that you were perhaps fond of them when you were an integral part to their multi-centurial power takeover? The short answer: you didn't. So Vivienne was stuck in a strange emotional limbo – looking for a moment too long at Klaus like a pathetic mortal and forced to embrace his view of her as some inhuman body guard or perhaps, if she was lucky, someday a friend.

Her dilemma concerning what she wanted to say was taken care of however, by the group of approximately twenty assorted magical beings that leaped out from the woods to attack, having previously been cloaked in complicated spell work.

The fighting was as quick as usual to care of. Vivienne truly didn't understand how people still hadn't accepted that the Mikaelsons were unbeatable. Word had spread about Vivienne's power as well, though nobody knew what she was. However, in the midst of her musing she saw something that made a surge of panicked _rage_ flood through her, a feeling she was unused to.

The unlucky witch that held her ire was somehow holding a _white oak stake_ and trying to move towards Elijah. Vivienne of course dematerialized and appeared between the witch and her charge, immediately grasping the witch's wrist and crushing it. The pained scream made no difference in her mind, and she grasped the stake for herself, shoving it into her pocket quickly. Without any remorse or hesitation, Vivienne felt black veins cover her face, allowed her dark irises expand to cover the entire sclera, and extended her talons before she tore out the witch's throat, all the while ignoring the knives and stakes that were glancing off of her skin as others in the attacking group tried to harm her.

After realizing that there were no more white oak stakes and only a few of the attackers remained alive – most likely for questioning – Vivienne materialized a bit closer to Klaus's side to check if he was okay, seeing Elijah already cleaning the blood from his hands with a silk handkerchief.

"You are both unharmed?"

Klaus let out a lightheartedly mocking snort and replied in a lofty tone, "I'm offended you doubted my wellbeing in the first place. Only a few pesky injured ones to finish off."

Vivienne nodded in agreement and sensed one of the injured rising to their feet just behind her, separating her and the elder Mikaelson. With a low sigh of annoyance, she turned around and materialized closer to the figure to dispose of the stupidly persistent warlock, catching sight of the glint of metal that signaled a weapon being held in his left hand. She stepped closer to the man, intent on knocking him unconscious as he thrust the weapon toward her.

Vivienne felt herself take a half step backwards and her breath left her in a small, punched-out huff, which she – she hadn't meant to do. The warlock had pushed her backwards? But he looked as though he was about to collapse and hadn't looked like he was going to shove at her, just try to stab –

The pain hit a second later, the very same second that the warlock smiled cruelly without teeth before he hissed out, "The Mikaelsons thought they were the only ones who knew about the Underworld's demons?"

It was ironic, or perhaps cosmic turnabout seeing as Vivienne's own pride had grown tenfold since she'd stood beside the Mikaelsons. She was their protector, yes, but she was not entirely invincible.

Vivienne's gaze followed the man's arm down to his hand, which was tightly gripping the soulflesh blade that was imbedded to the hilt in her stomach.

* * *

Elijah looked down at the single unconscious witch he had left alive, determined to figure out what had happened. More specifically, why exactly the allies of the New Orleans coven believed they could take his family on. Even while separated from his other two brothers and sister, Klaus and Vivienne were the only back up he needed to take out a coven if he wished. He could hear the thumping sound of yet another body hitting the ground and he looked over the total of their efforts. When he saw Klaus leaning down over a witch he recognized as one of the leaders of the New Orleans coven, he knew that the real difficulty lay ahead. Instead he chose to walk over to Vivienne to brainstorm with her as to what had happened while Klaus got over some of his initial raging.

When he approached her he saw a warlock standing in front of her begin to weakly sway, so Elijah reached forward to throw him to the side so he could begin speaking with Vivienne.

But what he saw when she was finally revealed to him completely was not what he expected. She looked so very, very young with an earnestly confused expression on her face that was matched with a wince as the black film covering her eyes disappeared and the darkness of her veins dissipated. But what was most disconcerting was the black blood staining the inside of her mouth and her teeth, making her look entirely grotesque.

Elijah was so startled by the liquid that he didn't immediately examine the rest of her.

"Vivienne, what – "

His question was answered when his gaze was drawn away by Vivienne lifting a trembling hand from where it had been at her side to her stomach, where he now saw a large knife was still inside of her. Before she could touch it, the blade seemed to disintegrate. However, the black blood continued to spread all down her front, gushing from the wound that _wasn't healing._

Vivienne produced a cough and her blood seemed to choke her as she stumbled a step toward him, and Elijah was jerked back into the moment as he caught both of her forearms to steady her. He had no idea what to do – Elijah didn't know what weapon had just disappeared from her body, a body he had wholeheartedly believed to be indestructible.

Elijah opened his mouth to call out to Klaus when she cut him off in a dazed, remorseful tone, reaching out to pet at his shirt, which he noted was _marred with drops of her blood._

"That might wash out."

And with that, she bent over and threw up viscous black liquid.

* * *

" _Niklaus, I need help!_ "

Klaus dropped the heart that he had been holding and let out an annoyed sigh. Elijah was a grown man, why on Earth should his fun be cut short to aid his brother who more than likely _didn't_ actually need his assistance?

"Elijah, I would have thought you could handle yourself."

When he turned, it became apparent that Elijah's cause for concern was not his own safety.

Vivienne was leaning against Elijah heavily, looking as though she was about to pass out and covered with what he guessed was her own blood, based on the bizarre color. Klaus immediately sped over and unthinkingly swung her up into his arms. Instead of protesting or shouting at him as she usually would, Vivienne's head simply lolled back in exhaustion. Klaus and Elijah seemed to have the same idea and began speeding back towards their house.

Just as they walked over the threshold, Vivienne craned her head up and looked at Klaus with deliriousness covering her features. Something looked… off about her, something besides the repulsive sight of black blood. A second later Klaus realized what it was when he met her gaze.

Vivienne's demonic black irises had vanished, and in their place for the first time since they'd met was a painfully human light green.

When she spoke, it was in a weak, earnest tone that faded in and out as she bordered the edge of consciousness before finally passing out.

"Has Henrik wandered off again? He's always causing trouble…"


	13. Chapter 13

Everything seemed to be vacillating between slow motion and time passing far too quickly. The only thing Vivienne could truly register was the pain in her stomach, the feeling that something was wrong. The only time she had felt pain in the last thousand years had been when she expended her powers. But this was different. This was agony and spreading out from the area that the soulflesh knife had punctured.

Vivienne vaguely registered that her shirt had been torn open and nonsensically she appreciated that she'd worn a modest bra. The voices around her became easier to understand and beyond the roaring sound in her ears she could make out what was being said.

""-disappeared before I could properly see it – "

"–she can't be trusted – "

Vivienne tried to sit up upon hearing that but the pain in her core made her gasp and slump back down onto the soft surface she'd been laid across. When she opened her eyes she saw that Klaus and Elijah were standing by her side, eying her with suspicion.

Vivienne tried to open her mouth – they had to know. They had to know why she was here. She should have told them weeks ago about Henrik's request that she protect his family, but when she tried to speak she instead had to turn her head to the side to painfully cough up more of her blood.

Soulflesh weapons should not be on Earth. They were the weapons the Valkyries wielded, and for them to have been abandoned on this plane meant that at some point there had been an uprising that stretched to earth she was unaware of. There were three ways a Rusalka could die, and Vivienne had not even considered that a soulflesh blade could have been wielded by one of the witches in New Orleans.

Over the next twenty minutes or so Vivienne could feel hands trailing over her forehead and stomach. The immense pressure she felt on the wound she'd sustained made her cry out, but the hands pressing against her didn't relent.

With a soulflesh weapon having been the cause of her injury, there was a chance that she could die a permanent death. She would heal at the same rate, perhaps a bit quicker than a human. And from what she remembered, humans could very well die from a stab wound to the stomach, although it wasn't a guarantee. With her skin, there would be no possibility of stitching her back together. There was a possibility that Vivienne could be sent back to the Underworld – but not as a demon. She would be a soul just like those she'd spent a millennium guiding.

The conversation going on above her was not reassuring in the least. Elijah and Klaus continued to argue, and Klaus seemed to be advocating that they not save her or even attempt to do so. Elijah's hands must be the ones that were attempting to stem the bleeding.

Finally, Vivienne felt the trickle of blood cease from her wound. She would need some sort of medical glue, or fuck, even a hot glue gun to hold her skin together. However, at the moment she was more concerned with her surroundings.

Cracking open her eyes, Vivienne peered at the two immortals beside her.

A hand clamped on her throat, and she met the furious eyes of Klaus.

"How do you know about Henrik?"

Vivienne would have rolled her eyes if she didn't feel like she was on the brink of death – the hybrid couldn't further harm her at the moment, but she tried to remain even and calm when she answered.

"He was one of the souls I was assigned to guide. I stayed by his side for three hundred years."

It was quite clear that her answer had not sufficiently assuaged their concerns when neither man moved a muscle or even shifted their facial expressions. It was Klaus that once more snarled at her and spoke.

"I don't believe in coincidence, love."

The endearment was scathing, clearly a mockery of her affections that she now realized he must have been aware of. Vivienne, not entirely in control of her body at the moment, felt her talons extend and had to tightly clench her hands shut so as not to alert the Mikaelson brothers to this fact.

"Use your brain, love. It isn't a coincidence."

"Elijah's gaze moved from her to Klaus, and Vivienne noted that his expression had become assessing instead of the blank slate it had been.

"Niklaus, release her."

Vivienne gasped when Klaus's hand left her throat and she realized that her windpipe had been genuinely constricted. Being wounded by a soulflesh weapon had clearly left her more incapacitated than she had initially suspected.

Elijah now looked down at her and was quiet when he said, "Prove it. If you were with our brother for centuries he would have told you things you could not know otherwise."

Vivienne sifted through her memories, trying to decide exactly what she could say that would convince both Klaus and Elijah. It would have to be information that each brother was positive only they knew. Looking first to Elijah, she spoke as clearly as she could.

"When Henrik was ten years old he found a bird with a broken wing. He was scared that your father would force him to leave it to die, so you helped him keep it alive in secret."

Elijah's eyes widened, letting her know that he hadn't been even slightly convinced before of her honesty, but Vivienne knew she would have a harder time with Klaus.

"He came to you crying a few weeks before he was killed and told you he hated Tatia for putting you and Elijah at odds."

Klaus's expression became pinched, but before either man could speak Vivienne interrupted them, knowing that this might be her last chance to try to persuade them that she was speaking honestly.

"He is the one who requested I watch over your family. And he was… the only friend I had made in a millennium. It would have been impossible not to become his friend after being with a boy like Henrik for so long. When he found peace I requested that I be allowed a leave of absence to return to earth."

The two men began exchanging glances and Vivienne wanted to scream at them. She was telling the truth. She had done nothing to earn their mistrust, and she was still in an incredible amount of pain after being stabbed while fucking protecting them. Klaus looked away from Elijah, staring at her with a tense expression and clenched jaw before he spoke in a flat voice.

"Leave this city. And stay away from our family or I swear I will find a way to end you."

Vivienne stared at him, completely shocked. She hadn't – she hadn't considered that upon finding out that Henrik was the one that requested her protection she would be banished. Elijah was glancing back and forth between herself and Klaus and for a moment Vivienne hoped that he would contest the statement, but she saw his face instead become resigned.

Taking a breath to strengthen her resolve, Vivienne managed to pull herself into a sitting position, feeling her wound begin to bleed again at the movement. Unfortunately, she was unable to hold in her high pitched whine of pain, but after taking a few shallow breaths she felt a bit better.

In a pleading voice that she hated having to use Vivienne asked, "Before I leave can I request medical attention?"

"Get. Out."

* * *

Klaus stared at the dark bloodstained indent in his bed where Vivienne had just dematerialized from. He honestly could not assign a name to what he was feeling, all he knew was that the mention of Henrik had made him irrationally want to tear the demon apart. Henrik's memory was sacred, and the very possibility that this – this creature – had experienced more time with his youngest brother than all of the Mikaelsons combined was enraging.

After a few more seconds of contemplation, Elijah interrupted his stream of thought in a disappointed tone.

p style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium;""We may very well have sentenced her to die."

Klaus let out a snarl and tried to sound as firm as possible when he said in a scathing voice, "We can only hope."

Elijah let out a frustrated sound and when Klaus looked at his older brother he was surprised to see that he appeared stressed, perhaps even worried.

"There would be no ulterior motive to claiming she was with Henrik. There would be nothing she could gain from lying about that, and it makes sense."

Klaus remained silent, not answering his brother for fear that he would reveal too much by means of the emotion that would no doubt remain in his voice.

"She is Rebekah's closest friend. Will you be the one to tell her that Vivienne is gone and may be dead because we refused to give her medical help after she was wounded while fighting on our behalf?"

Without pausing to give him time to answer, Elijah continued in a more even tone.

"I would have thought your own affection for her would have granted her clemency."

Klaus finally broke, grabbing the lamp from the bedside table and throwing it across the room so that it shattered the mirror. Infuriated, he then whirled around to face his brother.

"She is nothing to me. Nothing."

Elijah looked at him with an expression that bordered on pity and said one final statement before he began to walk out of the room.

"I'm sure eventually you'll be able to convince yourself of that."


	14. Chapter 14

_Two Years Later_

Kol hadn't felt true fear in centuries. Even while his father had been trying to track him down there hadn't been this deep terror – the terror one felt when facing their own mortality.

The witches had cast enough spells to reduce his strength to barely more than that of a human. Though he was pushing back against the white oak stake that the warlock in front of him was wielding, it had already dug an inch into his flesh and was only going deeper.

However, the warlock's motions halted when a hand was suddenly protruding from his chest.

The sound of three necks breaking registered in his mind and when he looked up he felt a pang of shock, having expected to see one of his siblings or perhaps another vampire ally of his.

Instead, Vivienne stood in front of him, though her appearance had drastically changed and it took a moment for him to recognize her. Her hair was longer and straight, a dark brown color, and paired with heavy eye makeup and red lipstick. Her outfit was also strangely foreign compared to her old style of dress – tight black jeans paired with an oversized black button down and heels that quite frankly looked more like weapons than shoes.

Without any pause the demon reached forward and yanked the white oak stake out of his chest before shoving it in her back pocket. She immediately began angrily murmuring under her breath while flicking her hand to presumably try to rid it of some of the blood that coated her arm up to her elbow.

"-of all the covens to antagonize, the one in Chicago with a white oak stake. And now I'll have to -"

Vivienne's words trailed off once more into a low, annoyed grumbling that he couldn't decipher, but before Kol could gather his thoughts the demon reached forward with her still-dripping hand and harshly grabbed one of his sleeves. After a final exasperated sigh from her, Kol suddenly felt as though his skin was too tight and he'd been scrubbed raw. However, the sensation was gone a moment later and he found himself standing in the foyer of his family's mansion in New Orleans.

Bekah, Nik, and Elijah all turned to gape at them, evidently having just been arguing if their body language was anything to go by. Kol opened his mouth to – well, he didn't quite know what to say, probably ramble out an insult or two – when he was interrupted by Vivienne shoving him towards them, speaking and looking entirely unconcerned.

"The blood bind alerted me to Kol's near-fatal condition. I'm not hanging around. So. Bye."

In a rare moment of clarity and quick thinking, Kol whipped around to face her and tightly gripped both of her wrists, preventing her from dematerializing without taking him with her. Expressionless, her face only changed as her eyes turned entirely black and dark veins crawled across her face.

"Tearing off your hands won't keep me up at night, pretty boy."

Bekah flashed over to the two of them and reached for Vivienne, perhaps hoping to embrace the woman, but she moved away. As she pulled her wrists from Kol's grasp Elijah loudly exclaimed, "Wait!"

Vivienne slowly turned to face him and crossed her arms before raising an eyebrow in condescending impatience.

"I'm leaving New Orleans; you can back off."

Elijah cringed minutely and Kol was able to see out of the corner of his eye that Nik had also stiffened a fraction at her words.

His oldest brother tried once more to speak in an earnest tone when he said, "The last time we saw you– "

Vivienne finally gave an intense reaction, visibly tightening her arms and tensing before saying in a scathing voice, "When you threw me out and I had to crawl to a witch for help so I wouldn't die?"

Without allowing anyone to respond, Vivienne faced Bekah, giving her an assessing look before she finally said in a voice much fonder than she'd spoken thus far, "I'll see you again soon, Bekah."

Turning back to the group at large, Kol saw that her expression had reverted to its bland, neutral state that gave nothing away. Just before vanishing, she spoke in a flat tone.

"Nobody knows me as Vivienne anymore. Ask around for Lethe, if you have to."

* * *

As soon as Vivienne disappeared, the entire family turned to look at Kol. Klaus barely held himself in check when he said in a demanding tone, "Tell us exactly what happened."

Kol shrugged and looked quite nonchalant, but Klaus knew Kol had been the least close to Vivienne, only interacting when others were present. When she'd – well, left might not have been the most accurate term – Kol had been unfazed, only slightly put out that they no longer had an actual demon from the Underworld as an ally. His youngest brother wandered into the sitting room and slumped down into an armchair while shrugging dismissively.

"Nothing much actually happened. I was in the midst of getting stabbed with a white oak stake after picking a fight with what turned out to be the wrong blokes when she showed up and killed them all. Then she brought me here."

Klaus nearly let his temper catch hold of him at Kol's casual mention of nearly being permanently killed, but decided that it was an issue that could be addressed after the more pressing matter was discussed.

"Did she say anything to you? Anything at all?"

Kol once more looked bored at Klaus's question and let a mocking edge enter his voice when he said, "Don't allow yourself to get desperate, brother. Just because you fancied her and then left her for dead doesn't mean you should lose your composure."

Klaus barely thought through his actions, immediately pinning Kol to his chair by the neck while his fangs descended and his eyes glowed yellow.

"Watch your tongue."

Kol only laughed delightedly in response and let his fangs retract after instinctively letting them descend during the attack, a gloating look covering his face when he responded, "I knew it! I was the first to guess that you'd be attracted to the hell-creature! Bekah, didn't I say it first?"

Klaus released Kol and stepped back to glance at his sister. Bekah hadn't looked away from the spot that Vivienne had just been and had a far off look in his eye. He was reminded of the day he had to tell his sister that Vivienne had been injured before he and Elijah had sent her away.

Bekah hadn't spoken to him for nearly two weeks and only broken her silence to scream at him for potentially causing the death of the girl that had become her best friend. When she looked now at Kol, however, to his immense annoyance she merely pouted, muttering back to him, "True, but I was the one who started it."

This… was not at all a conversation Klaus had ever thought his family would be having. His younger siblings had been playing matchmaker the whole time? To a maladjusted demon?

The very worst part was that it had worked. Two years ago there had been a few short weeks when Klaus had fancied the woman and begun to ponder the possibility of the two of them together long term. Their banter was something he had looked forward to on a daily basis, and seeing her get flustered when he flirted had been more than a little amusing. For a thousand-year-old demon, she'd been strangely bad at hiding her emotions when it came to the fact that she liked him back.

And then everything had changed when he had refused to give her a fraction of trust.

* * *

Vivienne let out an unholy, fed up shriek the moment she arrived in her apartment. Why the fuck – why was she still forced to be here? And to still be tethered to the Mikaelsons after all they had done to her seemed like an enormous 'fuck you' from the Fates.

She hadn't been accepted back to the Underworld when she'd tried to return. Instead she'd been curtly informed that her sworn duty was not complete. But seeing as the Original family were fucking immortal, there was every possibility that she was permanently stationed on earth.

And of course this was made so much better by the fact that she now knew her blood binding spell wasn't dissipating anytime soon. Whenever one of the Original vampires was in mortal danger, she'd be summoned to their side. What a joy.

Striding over to the kitchen table, Vivienne felt no shame when she grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniels she'd had with breakfast-lunch-and-dinner, immediately taking a long pull straight from the already nearly-empty bottle. She had twelve more in her pantry anyway.

Seeing them all… it hurt. Distracting herself the last two years hadn't been too difficult, and she could admit that she'd enjoyed building up a reputation for herself among the shadier supernatural creatures in New York City. A Rusalka had died in the Hudson River two centuries before and the location acted as a fairly functional power source for Vivienne to use. But having to stand in front of the Mikaelsons after two years brought back all of the pain and bitterness she'd stored up the last couple of years.

Vivienne had long since come to terms with the fact that Bekah hadn't been a part of the decision to essentially let her bleed out. She hadn't been joking when she'd said she would visit the girl again – she missed the closest friend she had made on Earth. Because now, after two years of establishing herself in this world all on her own, Vivienne couldn't give less of a shit what the Mikaelson brothers said.

Vivienne had spent much of her time seeking out soulflesh weapons and seizing them as well as white oak stakes for her own peace of mind. She knew for a fact that there were no soulflesh weapons anywhere on the East Coast. And the only other manner in which she could be killed by means of a weapon required a truly elaborate plot and involved waiting until the Slavic Rusalka week in June. So if she wanted to start partying it up in New Orleans with Bekah - well, Klaus and Elijah were welcome to try to stop her.

* * *

 _I figured since you had to wait so long I might as well post a second update in two days. xx_


	15. Chapter 15

Three days into her drinking binge, Vivienne was rudely awoken at two in the afternoon by a loud series of knocks on her door. Without bothering to look up from the couch cushion she'd apparently passed out on, she threw the TV remote beside her head at the door. The loud cracking sound did nothing to dissuade the person trying to get in, so Vivienne finally let out a groan before pulling herself up.

Well shit. This was more than likely one of her higher-up employees or contacts if they still insisted on meeting with her. Taking a quick look in the mirror, she was pleased to see that the smudged, messy eye makeup gave off a surprisingly dangerous vibe. Though her recent viewing of the newest Captain America movie might have skewed her judgement concerning the ferocious appearance of smudged black eyeliner.

Yanking open the door, Vivienne was surprised to see her two most trusted – employees, for lack of a better term – standing nervously outside. With a quick wave to motion them in, she wandered to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee.

"So, my most esteemed gentlemen. Debrief me."

From what she could hear, the two men were nudging one another and trying to encourage the other to start. These two in particular were actually her favorites among those who she interacted with on a daily basis. The vampire and werewolf got along well and their antics frequently could improve her mood. Finally, the vampire Jared said, "People have been looking for you, Lethe. The real powerhouses – Elijah and Klaus Mikaelson."

Vivienne's head dropped and she let out an annoyed breath as she measured out the coffee grounds, making sure there would be enough for Jared and Reed to have some if they wanted, seeing as they were two of the few individuals she was glad to have in her home. She'd been expecting this, but it was still irritating. She had done as they'd asked. The only reason she had returned to New Orleans was to help out Kol. Elijah and Klaus had no reason to suddenly be interested in her life. Truthfully, if she hadn't seen Bekah after transporting Kol she likely would have never reached out again.

Bekah had been incredibly important to her, but it was only because she'd been forced to look at the girl again that Vivienne's longing for their close friendship had reared its head.

Vivienne had gotten used to not having anybody.

* * *

Rebekah jumped a little when Vivienne suddenly appeared next to her in her bedroom. It caused a brief bout of nostalgia when she was hit with the memories of how the demon used to constantly pop up and try to scare her, bursting into laughter when Rebekah had let out embarrassing shrieks. However right now she desperately took the sight of her in, a surge of relief flooding through her.

Even though Vivienne had said that Rebekah would see her again, she hadn't been sure if Vivienne would honor that promise. For Vivienne to show up less than a week later gave her hope that maybe the two of them could start seeing each other again regularly.

Vivienne looked Rebekah up and down with a critical eye, taking in her silk pajamas – a stark contrast to Vivienne's own dressed up outfit – before saying, "Get all prettied up. We have a dinner reservation, then we're going out drinking."

Rebekah smiled widely and sped over to her, throwing her arms around Vivienne's neck and hugging her tightly. The demon was incredibly tense and flinched slightly, but after a few seconds she tentatively wrapped her arms around Rebekah's waist and returned the embrace.

When Rebekah stepped back she saw that a small smile covered Vivienne's face before she made a shooing motion towards Rebekah's closet.

"Come on now, hurry up. We're flaunting ourselves around the city tonight."

Rebekah immediately grabbed a new dress of hers she'd been dying to wear out and slid on a pair of stilettos, noting that Vivienne was wearing nearly identical shoes. Without any delay or small talk, she then sat down at her vanity and tried to apply her makeup as quickly as possible.

She could see Vivienne watching her in the mirror silently, but when Rebekah began curling her hair Vivienne approached her and spoke quietly.

"I'll do that. You always make – used to make the curls uneven in the back."

Rebekah had to swallow back emotion at her use of the past tense and willed herself not to give it away in her expression. She'd thought Vivienne was dead. There had been no evidence to the contrary, and nobody she had reached out to had ever heard that name. Now Rebekah knew it was only because she'd begun going by Lethe. She answered back in what she hoped was a playful tone but knew that she missed her mark.

"Lethe. The river of forgetfulness in the Underworld."

She saw Vivienne nod in the mirror as she began gently coming through Rebekah's hair, murmuring, "I thought it was appropriate. I remade myself and did my best to forget my first year back on earth."

Rebekah finally let herself go and her voice cracked as she said, "I missed you. If I had been there- "

She was cut off by Vivienne, but not maliciously when she said, "It might have had the same outcome. The mention of Henrik would have hurt you. It's a touchy subject. Nik overreacted, but considering how Henrik died it's pretty obvious that it would be a hot button. But I missed you, too."

Vivienne gently squeezed her shoulder before focusing once again on curling Rebekah's hair for her, the only sound made was the spritz of hairspray after each curl. When she finished, she stepped back and allowed Rebekah to stand as well. Reaching out her hand, a genuinely fond expression was paired with a gentle voice when she said, "Come along. We can't be late."

* * *

It wasn't awkward at dinner. Rebekah had felt herself fall back into the playful relationship and snarky conversations that she and Vivienne had always had, but they both clearly didn't want to talk about anything actually all that significant. Vivienne had cajoled her into discussing the men in her life over the last two years.

"- nothing serious. I've taken a few lovers, but nobody of importance. Love hasn't been a priority of mine – family has been the focus, and I believe Nik-" Rebekah cringed and cut herself off immediately, seeing Vivienne's smile tighten just a fraction of an inch. Clearing her throat, she switched the direction of her sentence and said, "But no. I haven't really come close to loving anyone."

Vivienne took a long sip from her pinot noir and seemed contemplative before she responded in a distant tone, "I actually know a vampire you might like. Jared is an employee of mine, a complete sweetheart who keeps me on my toes. He'd worship the ground you walk on."

Rebekah rolled her eyes and sarcastically said, "Never thought you'd try to set me up, seeing as you were socially inept when we met."

Vivienne raised her eyebrows and looked distantly amused when she finally seemed to break the unspoken topic the two had been avoiding.

"I'm a better match maker than you, evidently."

Rebekah felt a surge of nausea and tried to convey her sincerity when she quickly responded, "I never would have pushed you two together if I'd known what would happen- "

Vivienne cut her off with a nonchalant wave and tipped her glass back, finishing the wine and motioning for their server to bring another bottle.

"It wasn't your fault in any way. If things hadn't gone the way they did, Niklaus and I might have eventually worked out. I was halfway in love with him even before you decided to interfere."

Rebekah, however, couldn't push aside her distress. She reached across the table and grabbed Vivienne's hand – a small part of her irrationally scared that the demon would leave again if they weren't touching – and said, "You were my best friend."

Vivienne shrugged and seemed entirely unashamed when she said, "You're still mine. I don't have any other friends."

Rebekah swallowed the lump in her throat at hearing that. The friends she'd made since being revived two and a half years ago hadn't gotten as close to her as Vivienne had been. Bitching about anything and everything over iced coffee with her and exploring New Orleans together had always been the highlights of her week. Regardless, she grasped on to the new direction of conversation and took her hand back while saying, "What is it that you've been up to these last few years?"

Vivienne seemed to perk up at the question and sounded proud when she said, "I took over Manhattan, actually. I'm the kingpin of the supernatural black market and intelligence community. I have the majority of the world's soulflesh weapons and white oak."

Rebekah let herself think that over. Vivienne hadn't mentioned destroying the white oak stakes. They were still in the world, and at the hands of a woman who had every reason to hate her family. But for now all Rebekah could do was trust that her friend wouldn't try to harm her or her brothers.

"What is a soulflesh weapon?"

Vivienne didn't answer immediately and instead gave her a long, assessing look.

"I need to know whether or not you plan to reveal any of this information to your brothers. If you agree, I'd like to perform a mind blend. You'll be able to control what I can and cannot see."

Rebekah froze. To let someone into her mind – it was a terrifying concept that set all of her instincts on edge. But… god, if anyone deserved a little bit of trust it was the woman in front of her who had almost died for her family, only to be cast out in response.

A small nod seemed to be all that Vivienne required and she quickly reached across the table to place her hand against Rebekah's temple, her eyes turning black and the dark veins crawling up all of her visible skin. Rebekah thought over her sincerity at not having any ulterior motives behind her questions and felt a strange tugging sensation before she saw a small fraction of what looked like smoke leave her own mouth which Vivienne quickly inhaled.

When the demon sat back she slumped slightly, her features returning to their human appearance.

"Let's be clear - I don't trust your brothers anymore. But I don't see any harm in telling you.

Soulflesh weapons are one of only three things that can kill me. It's what the warlock used on me two years ago. They're the weapons of the Valkyries. And I told Klaus years ago about Valkyries, but I'm unsure how much he told you. They're lower demons that are raised to the higher role based on merit. They're very conspicuous in appearance when their demonic qualities manifest. I get claws and dark veins – they become entirely covered with elaborate scaled armor. But their weapons but can only be used once on demons.

The second way I can die is pretty complicated. It requires trapping me in a circle of wormwood on consecrated pagan ground for the entire Slavic Rusalka week, then drowning me in water that has been infused with steel for at least one year. Any one of those ingredients still hurts like a bitch and can incapacitate or trap me for a few minutes, though."

p style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium;"Rebekah nodded along to her explanation, not planning on doing anything with the information and only having asked to assuage her curiosity. However, she couldn't help saying in a prodding voice, "You said three things."

Vivienne snorted and leaned forward to rest her elbows on the table.

"The third way I can die isn't a weapon or ritual. Any level demon can do a soul exchange. It's happened maybe four times in the last three thousand years. It requires too much power to survive. To make it incredibly simple, it means a demon can pull a soul who hasn't found peace yet out of the Underworld."

Rebekah could only blink at that, a little bit shocked. To her shame, for a second her thoughts strayed to Henrik and whether or not Vivienne could bring him back. But then the weight of the words hit her. Vivienne would be dead, and Henrik had apparently already found peace.

She'd only just gotten her friend back. If anything, Rebekah was going to be more protective than ever of her. She knew that Vivienne hadn't approached any of her brothers yet, though it was inevitable that they would eventually see one another again. If she had, Nik and Elijah would no doubt be ranting and raving.

Her family was startling dramatic for beings that had lived through one thousand years in which they could have managed their tempers. Of course she couldn't condemn them, she was the very same. The waiter arrived then, placing down another bottle of wine. Rebekah had to physically cover her mouth with her palm to keep from giggling when Vivienne nonchalantly extended one of her talons to quickly uncork the bottle.

However, a second later Vivienne smiled conspiratorially at her and leaned in before saying, "I wanted to freak out that old woman over there who's been glaring at us under the impression we're lesbians on a romantic date."

Rebekah gave in to the inevitable and threw back her head as she burst into laughter.

* * *

 _Alright, I've had this written for a while... I know 3 updates in 2 days is overkill, don't get used to it! As always, let me know what you think about the characters, plot, etc. xx_


	16. Chapter 16

Vivienne felt absolutely wonderful amongst the crowd of humans, having taken some ecstasy, though it was quickly wearing off. A thrumming beat was sounding out from the speakers of the club in New Orleans while everyone pushed up against each other. She made sure to press up against a few people but nearly let out a sigh of relief when she finally made contact with a vampire.

Sex with humans wasn't an option anymore. If she even attempted to ride a human male she was fairly certain she'd break his back. But vampires and werewolves worked well. At times, very well.

After only a few minutes of grinding against the vampire, she turned to him and smiled widely as she tugged him – taking care to not use any more strength than a human woman would have – towards the alley. A quick fuck up against a brick wall would likely temper the incredibly tense feeling that had been building up the last few days as she had begun wandering around New Orleans. Every corner reeked of the Mikaelson family's influence. Vivienne made sure not to come across any of them but Bekah, but it was frustrating nonetheless.

However, her plans very quickly changed when instead of initiating sex, the man pinned her against the wall and attempted to bite her.

God, what an _asshole_.

Vivienne felt a brief moment of humor at his panic when she materialized just behind him, but decided to hurry along with the evening. As soon as her hands touched his temples, he fell to his knees. She was fairly thorough with her mind blend, and by the time she released him the vampire was slumped to the ground.

Vivienne turned away to leave the alley, but paused and instead strode back over to him. After a brief, assessing look at the man – Alexander, she'd learned – she let out an annoyed sigh and crouched down, tearing out his heart.

The vampire had been a part of a group planning an attack against Elijah next weekend. This discovery gave her a good excuse as any to begin interacting with the Original.

* * *

It wasn't exactly a surprise when Vivienne reached out to him over the phone, but Elijah was surprised when it was on a Sunday morning. Her text had been simple, dismissive if anything else.

 _Suzanne's Diner for 11o'clock brunch_

He had quickly confirmed her sort-of-request, and decided immediately that he would not tell Niklaus of their upcoming interaction. However, now that he sat on the opposite side of a booth from her as she nonchalantly sipped on a mimosa, he wished that there was a distraction of sorts between them.

p style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium;"Elijah was already admittedly caught off guard when he had arrived only to find her already a mimosa and looking as though she was settled in, albeit hungover. She was wearing a pair of leggings with black heels and an enormous plain white t-shirt, matched with oversized sunglasses that she'd pushed up and off of her face, revealing smeared eye makeup.

"So, you've got trouble among the ranks of your vampire henchmen. I would have though you and Nik would be able to handle that fairly easily. Messy, messy."

Vivienne's tone was entirely mocking, especially the emphasis on his brother's nickname, so Elijah decided to simply go along with the subject.

"Minor dissent, true. But they've been extinguished quickly."

Vivienne let out a low hum and began gently tracing her fingertips around the rim of her glass, making it ring out. When she finally looked up at him and met his eyes, she seemed entirely amused.

"That isn't what Alexander thought. He and Don have gathered about fifteen individuals who are more than happy to try to overthrow you and your family, especially since it's common knowledge that you've no longer got a badass bodyguard. Like I said, _messy_."

Elijah opened his mouth to ask for more details, but Vivienne quickly waved him off and nonchalantly said, "I'll text you their names, although it feels a little bit like cheating. If I have to maintain my empire without any help why should I be giving you hints? But whatever, this guy pissed me off before I killed him. The asshole tried feeding on me when all I'd wanted was a back-alley fuck."

Elijah schooled his features until he was sure his expression was impassive. This woman in front of him – he didn't know her anymore. Of course physically she looked drastically different, but it was everything else. Her demeanor, her mannerisms, everything about her was unfamiliar, and therefor unpredictable.

"You've changed."

p style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium;"Vivienne's false air of pleasantry vanished, and when she narrowed her eyes at him the icy tone of her voice matched her expression.

"I'd like to think so. I'm nobody's servant anymore."

Elijah didn't want to delve into that issue, already sensing that it would cause colossal disruption, so instead he asked, "Why are you here? I'd have thought you wouldn't return after delivering Kol to us."

Vivienne's posture relaxed and she leaned back before shrugging and saying, "Boredom, mostly. Curiosity. And I _did_ miss Bekah."

"And do you plan – "

Vivienne cut him off with an annoyed huff and chugged the rest of her mimosa before signaling to the waiter that she'd like another. Elijah had seen that she'd been getting her glass refilled as he'd been walking into the diner, so he raised an eyebrow at the behavior.

A wicked smile covered her face and she answered the unasked question when she said, "Oh, I've been wreaking havoc, don't you worry. A full-scale downward spiral into alcoholism followed by a complete takeover of the supernatural side of Manhattan. And I, unlike you, am having raging success. Just trying to be the best demon I can. I'm an untrustworthy hell spawn, remember?"

Elijah knew a pained expression must be on his face, and in turn Vivienne's features became nonchalant as she continued, "I haven't been able to return to the Underworld. I'm doing what I have to for your family so I can leave."

Before Elijah could respond, Vivienne stood up and began rifling through her wallet, throwing a fifty-dollar bill on the table before winking at their passing waiter.

She took a step away from him, but paused. Turning back to face him, she spoke calmly and firmly.

"Your family hasn't wanted me to be here for years. I'm just trying to do what we all want."

Vivienne glanced around the nearly-empty diner and seemed to note that nobody was looking at them, because she vanished a second later.

Elijah had never regretted exiling her more than he did in this moment.


	17. Chapter 17

It only took Klaus a few seconds to realize what was going on when he heard things falling to the floor and shattering in different rooms of his home when he knew there had been no intruders.

Damnit. He'd been hoping to see her again on his terms. Standing up from the chair he'd been reading in situated in the corner of his bedroom, he decided to call out to her.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are. It isn't like you to be shy, Vivienne."

A second later, she appeared on his bed. She seemed entirely relaxed with her hands laced together behind her head, which was sinking into his pillow. For a moment - as he was sure was her intention - he was starkly reminded of the last time she had laid in that exact spot, bleeding out before he sent her away to die. He'd come to realize in the last few years that she had been telling the truth. Klaus had gone over every possibility in his head as to what motive she could have had for lying, and had been unable to find even one.

But Henrik - _God_ , the mention of Henrik had made him see red. And in his anger he had reacted without logic.

Vivienne's mocking tone pulled him out of his reverie as a smirk covered her face before she said nonchalantly, "I don't know, babe. Maybe I've grown as a person." Vivienne winked obnoxiously at him and let her eyes bleed black for a moment before returning to their usual appearance, nothing short of a dare to rile him up.

Klaus wasn't going to rise to the bait. Instead he walked closer to her silently, looking her up and down while she didn't move, seeming entirely relaxed. It wasn't sexual or lascivious - he merely catalogued all that had changed.

She looked - colder. Harder. Her appearance was clearly reconstructed, and it made him feel a pang of - not _sadness_. Obviously she could do whatever she wanted with her body. But Klaus didn't know if she would have ever felt the need or desire to change if she'd stayed with his family and all had continued as it had been during her first months with his family.

Klaus kept his own voice even and detached when he spoke, noting that she'd raised her eyebrows and looked amusedly expectant in response to his silence.

"The last time you laid on my bed I did you a disservice."

Vivienne snorted and looked annoyed as she sat up and sarcastically said, "That is certainly one way to phrase it."

She pouted and hopped off of the bed, walking slowly around the room and examining the books on his bedside table, carelessly flipping through them. Without looking away from his copy of _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ , Vivienne said in an exaggeratedly sad voice, "Not to be _melodramatic_ , but you broke my shriveled, demonic heart that day. I had been ridiculously infatuated with you."

She looked up at him and was more serious than he had seen her since she'd first introduced herself to his family when she said, "You've realized by now of course that I hadn't been lying. It was probably your distrust that was harder to accept than the refusal to help me after I saved your asses."

Klaus opened his mouth but then shut it again. He'd known that she had seen him in a romantic light, but their relationship had been unspoken. He had never truly assigned a word to his feelings, instead letting them develop in the back of his mind, deciding to deal with them later when he had time to think the possibilities over. For her to point it out so blatantly, and in the past tense - he didn't know how to feel.

Vivienne, clearly seeing that his expression signaled his lack of prepared response, laughed loudly and put down the book, strolling over to him until she only stood a few feet away.

Her eyes trailed over him critically, and he knew he was somehow being judged. After a minute of silence she shrugged and stepped forward before grabbing his wrist. He was suddenly overcome with a pressing sensation on every inch of his body and his vision went dark, which stopped after a second.

Klaus instinctively let his fangs descend as he looked around the unfamiliar room, five people already occupying it. Only two of them looked at them, and they only barely glanced at his and Vivienne's sudden appearance, instead for the most part keeping their eyes trained on an enormous map of Manhattan hanging on the wall, covered with different colored pushpins.

One of the men, however, approached Vivienne - Klaus sensed after a second that he was a werewolf and felt the familiar pang of resentment that his mother had been sure that he couldn't turn any hybrids following the death of the doppelgänger - and started speaking in a respectful voice.

"You were right about the McAllisters, Lethe. They tried to rent themselves out to perform spells for other supernaturals in the Upper East side."

Vivienne released his wrist and started talking in a firm voice.

"Send Mark and Christopher to deal with them. Keep the kills below four. I'm taking the hybrid out on the town."

After hearing her words, all of the men whipped their heads around to stare wide eyed at them. Evidently they hadn't realized who he was, and Klaus felt a smug expression cover his face as he lets his fangs retract. However before he could speak, Vivienne spoke again.

"Keep me updated on the situation. If they retaliate, I'll put together a group to take them out."

At her words, the group seemed reassured, and once more, Klaus felt Vivienne grab his wrist and pull them somewhere else.

* * *

Rebekah stared down at the text from Vivienne on her phone. She didn't know whether to be worried or incredibly, incredibly amused.

" _Took your half brother to New York. Grabbing drinks, catching up, yada yada. Then I'm leaving him here and letting him find his way home. Talk to ya soon!_ "

Elijah seemed to have received a similar message, seeing as when he returned to the mansion an hour later he immediately said, "This has the potential to be a very bad evening."

Rebekah snorted in response and added another splash of whiskey to the mixed drink she'd been making, realizing that she'd likely need the alcohol for the night ahead, _especially_ once Vivienne abandoned Nik in New York City. He'd be nothing short of apoplectic.

"Quite right. Nik will be sure to throw a tantrum when she returns."

Out of the corner of her eye Rebekah saw Elijah turn to her with an alarmed expression. In a slow, cautious tone he asked, "When you say _she_ returns..."

Rebekah burst into laughter. Apparently Vivienne or Klaus - whoever had reached out to her oldest brother - hadn't included that little detail.

"She plans on returning alone, stranding him in the city."

He looked contemplative at her answer, silently assessing the situation in his mind.

"Well. We can't argue that it's undeserved."


End file.
